The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1869-03-31
- Z
: Trials of Travellers = Union Pacific
{ = -. ..-,.-~.. Railroad.


Nbrief account OF the sufferings Of over zoo
7 passengers Dag 4, on the Union Pacific railroad
while detained by the snow in the Rocky
;Mountain section. The New York Times
has a letter giving details Of the affair
The athrough train" was stopped On the
18th Of February ct place called haw.
;linas. Thsrethe passengers remained until
the a7d, grumbling, growing, and threat.
ching. Mr.. HOPPER, the superintendent OF
Wssatch division, received them always
vita q smile, promising from day to day to
let them start, and each day brought dis
appointment. One day the hands were
hard at work, and would be through the
next. and the next brought despair BY the
information that the SNOW had newly drlfted
. int the deep cuts, and it WIS impossible to
get through e'>-' 80 !,
Meantime the passengers were allowed
the use Of the telegraph, and freely trans
misted curses Of the road to the eastern
cities. :ssai y e.!r. t1s1 "a. "..# @
~ On the s1st, Mr.. J. N. CAMPBELL, super
;ntendsnt Of the Laramie division, tele-
,,s,;raphed from Laramie that two hundred
passengers gotng aOsst had been supplied
with athres locomotives and shovels, aOith
,"khe, understanding that they should stose'
,athro1qh." He adds: "They left here
yesterday morning, and have only got
50 about twenty miles. They find it is no
as.playto shovel snow One-fourth will not
q work OF all" This was cool enough No
wonder that the thermometer was on the
next day twenty-seven degrees below zero
It seems these westward-bound 200 made
little Roadway, and what became OF them
the correspondent of the Times does not
say. The eastward bound passengers left
Rawlings on the I'D, with three locome-
tiyss and seven days rations. They pro-
ceeded forty FIVE miles, and ran pell-mell
, into snow-bank, where they remained tor
forty-eight hours. This catastrophe, in the
opinion Of one OF the railroad conductors,
was not out of order, since when they
started he told them it would serve them
right if they ran into a snow-bank!
When arrested by this deep bank OF snow
4. the passengers got out and worked hard'
j shovelline the snow from the track; but as
fast as they cleared it away it was blown
back by the winds, until about midnight,
in despair, they gave up, and the train and
locomotives were still and motionless. That
night the thermometer fell to twenty-seven
degrees below zero. Over seventy passen-
: gers were frozen, more or less, including
Judge SoU7HARD, Of San Francisco, who
had his nose frozen, and Mr.. GEORGE E.
WHITNEY, who had both of his ears nipped
off.
On Wednesday the Path, ninety passen-
gers started on foot to walk through to
Laramie, o distance of ninety miles.
Others afterwards followed, so that not
more than twenty-five passengers stuck to
the snowed-up train. On the 25th instant
they made seven miles, on the 26th they
travelled twsnty-six miles, eleven of them,
by part Of the number of travellers, ON
.locomotivs-to Miser. Thence again by
foot the wearied and suffering pedestrians
journeyed on through wind and snow till
. they reached Laramie, on the lst Of
March. Many we're frost bitten, and oil
were greatly distressed.
This is but brief sketch of the horrors
ofthis journey on the Union Pacific railroad,
which, as winter route, is full of perils to
travellers-even in summer they are not
safe from snow-storms. One occurred last
June in the Rocky Mountains which sub
jected the passengers to intense suffering.
This road has been pet of the Govern
ment. lts corporators have amassed mill
lions through Government bounty. Yet the
Government has refused assistance to the
line via the Southwest Pass, which is free
from the perils Of frost, and whose grades
are easy. How strangely are we governed
Nevertheless, the road via the Southwest
Pass will be built by private enterprise ;
and when it is finished, if anybody from
the Pacific has his nose or his ears bitten
of by frost on the Union Pacific railroad
in February or June it will be his own
fault. .aa@.