Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1868-11-08
THE WONDER OF THE TINE.
The Pacific Railroad - The Snow
Sheds - Scenes Along the Route -
Progress of the Work
From tne San Francisco Bulletin.

The line OF the Central Pacific rails
road continues to the scene Of remark,
able activity 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, locomotives, lumber and
store trains, teams and laborers The
company is employing about 10000
labOrers and over 5000 teams. Its army
of railroad builders, and the smaller
army employed in getting out lumber and
stone on contract or acting as suffers
and providers, have built up numerous
temporary towns which give recent soli-
tudes and desert tracts the air of old
settlements" The numerous work.
shops, factories, mills, depots and trading
posts created by its necessities have
diversified the industry of an extensive
region, and planted the germs of per.
manent Improvement.
The transit of the regular passenger
and freight trains twice day is but q
slight incident in the immense activity
of movement, business and labor along
the whole line. IL is not too much to say
that the building Of the Central Pacific
has distributed a population of 1000 or
10000 through region before chiefly
uninhabited, and has created fifteen or
twenty towns that promise to be perma-
nent, besides numerous camps and
villages which serve q temporary pur-
pose The woods of the Sierra Nevada
ring for hundred miles with the strokes
Of axmen and the click of quarrymen and
stone~cutters. Atone point alone (Truek4
keel twenty-five or thirty saw mills are ia
operation getting out lumber FOR ties,
huts, boarding, frames and roofing. The
Iruckee river is clogged with logs in
places floating on the way to be sawed
On Donner Lake recently, cOuld be seen
boom of 500 logs which would make
nearly 100000 feet Of sawed lumber; and
the bare granite cliffs about the lake con-
stantly rGsOund with the stroke of the
woodmens axes, the shouts Of the OK
drivers hauling logs, the groan and crash
of falling trees, the whistle and the
rumble OF passing trains.
Lumber of every description is piled
along the road waiting for cars to convey
it where it is needed to extend the track,
to make snow sheds, or to bald stations,
depOts, stores and dwellings Seventy
locomotives and several hundred cars Of
various kinds are continually passing to
and fro on different portions Of the route,
engaged in the transportation Of mate-
rial, supplies and laborers. Every day
500 tons Of material for the extension OF
the track are passed over the Sierra, SUR
mounting an altitude of 1920 feet, and
pushing on to the 'front.' q distance of
300 to 400 miles east of Sacramento Ex-
erton i5 redoubled as Writer approaches
to get as much grade finished and as
much material forwarded as possible be-
fore the heavy SHOWS set in, also to COM
plcte the roofing and siding Of the snow
sheds framed puring the present season
When the snow does come, unless the
winter Is an unusually mild one, the
sound of the woodlands ak will cease,
the buzzing saw mills viii be hushed, the
hustle of the fresh pine towns will be
stIlled, and the chief work in the snow
belt Of the Sierra will be to keep the
track open and pass the trains.
All the stir and labor now witnessed
are directed to pushing the iron road as
far as possible towards the end Of Salt
Lake betOie winter. On Monday last the
passenger cars began running to VIM
The track IS laid about 24 miles further,
say nearly to Emigration Canon, and the
grading Is completed at least so miles
further while an army Of graders is
| making rOad,bed still another 80 miles
beyond. The distance from Sacramento
TO the north end Of Salt Lake is Gjl
miles. Track is laid fer 34S miles Of this
distance, and is being extended at the
average rate of 24 miles day The time
at which the track will reach the lake, is
now only q question of motive power and
weather The grading may all be com,
pleted 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, the track can be laid
through the winter as fast as the material
can be forwarded
About 500 tons of material-ties, rails,
! spikes. bolts, charts, etc, are required
| for two miles of track, and to transport
this across the summit of the Sierra, over
a heavy ascending grade, requires about
| fifty ears and ten locomotives daily. The
company needs more motive lower for
| this and its other business, aud has OT-
| dered fifteen locomotives TO be shipped
from New York by way Of the Isthmua
Immediately. Iron is coming fast enoug Oh
| already, and the tamarack groves OF the
Sierra furnish the ties. The transports
ing power of the company is 20 largely
| devoted TO pushing its road materia
ahead that it is obliged to refuse grea
deal Of custom freight, much to the in
| convenience of traders in the mountain,
and in Wash0e Everything must bend
st present to the construction Of the rail
way. The company is playing for BIZ
stake, in which the farmers, manIfactu
rers and merchants OF California ar,
equally interested-the ownership of tn,
entire route to Salt Lake, and the eontrs
Of'the trade to Utah, with its pOpulatiQI
of nearly two hundred thousand, inereas
ing at the rate of ten per cent per an
mum.
The Union Pacific Company is work
ing from the eastern side with the sam
objective, and has pushed agrading fore
| beyond the three hundred mile limit fixe,
By Congress but the Central folks arC
not afraid of being passed, and hay
made arrangements which they are con
| adent will enable them to reach the mort
end of the lake first, if they do not eve
get beyond it. They deny the repoI
that the Union Pacific had telegraphet
an offer of the free use of so much G
their grade as the Central could frs
iron, and of payment of so much Of tn
Central grade as the Union should b
able to iron. The two companies at
not grading in parallel lines near tn
lake, as supposed by some, but have lie
gaps in the one main line in their anxiet
to press forward either way, and al
bound to connect at some point, as ri
duired by law. There is now little di
ference between the distance which eac
; company has to build to reach the sam
point north of the lake, and only abor
five hundred miles in all remain to
: constructed Of the one thousand seye
: hundred and twenty-five originally to
built between Sacramento and oman
The work of grading across the Nevad
and Utah Plains eastward IS not dithcul
, The country is an elevated plateau
broken into a series of valleys by SUI
cessiye ridges, rising above the gener
level from a few hundred to thOusar
, feet These ridges are passed thIoul
; easily by following mainly the course
i streams, and the intervalssor small plan
! offer a level surface, that needs only
/ little smoothing to be ready for the til
: Down the eastern slope of the Sierra n
f vada, and far beyond Humboldt Lake, I
road usually follows the bed of t
Truckee Leaving this bright, Gle