The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1868-11-06
The San Francisco Bulletin says

!
"The line of the Central Pacific Railroad
continues to be the scene of remarkable ac-
tivity. From Sacramento to a point on the
Plains nearly or quite 500 miles eastward,
the route is lively with the passage of
freight, construction and supply cars, To-
comotives, lumber and store trains, teams
and laborers. The company is employing
about 10000 workmen and over 5000
teams. Its army of railroad builders, and
the smaller army employed in getting out
stone and lumber on contract, or acting as
suffers and providers, have built up nu-
merous temporary towns, which give recent
solitude and desert tracts the air of old
settlements The numerous workshops,
factories, mills, depots and trading posts
created by its necessities have diversified
! the industry of an extensive region and
| planted the germs of permanent improve
ment.
"The transit OF, the regular passenger and
| freight trains twice day is but slight
incident in the immense activity of move
rnent, business and labor along the whole
line. 1t is not too much to say that the
building of the Central Pacific has distrib-
uted population of 10000 or 10000
through region before chiefly uninhabi-
ted, and has created fifteenor twenty towns
that promise to be permanent, besides Ru-
merous camps and villages which serve a
temporary purpose. The woods of the ST.
ezra Nevada ring for a hundred miles with
the strokes of axemen and the click of
quarrymen and stone cutters At one point
alone Truckee) twenty-five or thirty saw
mills are in operation getting out lumber
for ties, huts, boarding, frames and roofing.
Truckee river is clogged with logs in pla-
ces floating on the way to be sawed. On
Bonner Lake recently could be seen boom
of 500 logs which would make nearly 500,-
600 feet of sawed lumber, and the bare
granite cliffs about the lake constantly re-
sound with the strokes of the woodmer's
axes, the shouts of the OK drivers hauling
logs, the groan and crash of falling trees,
the whistle and the rumble of passing
trains r .#.rri s. .=rTt.rr
Lumber fevery description ispiled along
the road waiting for carsto convey it where
it is needed to extend the track, to make
snow sheds, or to build stations, depots,
stores and dwellings. Seventy locomotives
and several hundreds cars of various kinds
are continually passing to and fro on diff
ferent portions of the route, engaged in the
transportation of material, supplies and
laborers. Every day 500 tons of material
for the extension of the track are passed
over the Sierra, surrounding an altitude of
1000 feet and pushing on to the front, a
distance of from 800 to 400 miles east of
Sacramento. Exertion is redoubled
as winter approaches to get as much
grade finished and as much materi-
al forwarded as possible before the heavy
SHOWS set in, also to complete the roofing
and siding OF the snow sheds framed dur
ing the present season. When the snow
does come, unless the winter is an unusual
ly mild one, the sound of the woodman's
axe will cease, the buzzing saw mills will
be hushed, the hustle of the fresh pine
towns will be stiAed, and the chief work
in the snow belt of the Sierra will be to
keep the track open and pass the traius.
| f~AlLthe stir an6 labor now witnessed are
directed TO pushing the iron road as far as
possible towards the head of Salt Lake be-
fore winter. On Monday last the passen-
ger cars began running to Winnemucca,
! 324 miles east of Sacramento. The track
is laid abont % miles further, say nearly to
Emigration Canon, and the grazing is COM
pleted for at least so miles further while
an army of graders is making road-bed
still another 80 miles beyond. The dis
lance from Sacramento to the north end of
Salt Lake is 651 miles. Track is laid for
35S miles of this distance, and is being ex-
tended at the average rate of about n
miles per day The time at which the
track will reach the lake is now only a
question of motive power and weather
The grading may all be completed in three
months, for another force, under contract
with the Mormons, is grading 100 miles
this side of the lake. With the road bed
completed before the ground freezes, track
can be laid through the winter as fast as
tile material can be forwarded 'a
/ About 500 tons af material-ties, rails,
spikes, bolts, chairs, &c. are required for
twomites of track, and 10 transport this