Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1905-04-17
DAD HITS
PACIFIC
SLOPE

Tuesday at Des Moines, Ia, to Friday
in. the great Sacramento valley is a
great run across country. At Des
Moines we left a sudden change from
SO degrees at noon Sunday to % de
grees Tuesday morning, All the way
to Omaha Tuesday were signs of frost
with occasional remains of snow
bank covered with a mourning fringe
of black coal dust, remainder of a
long and frigid winter. There was
snow in sight all the way through
Wyoming, Utah and Nevada.
Des Moines and Omaha are great,
growing, spreading, smoky cities, thaw.
ing slowly out of the embrace of win
ter, the elms and naples sending out
the first ventures of foliage, and a
frosty chill still hanging in the air.
The train service over the Union
Pacific has been much improved and
the run is made through from Omaha
to Ogden in about 80 hours without
change of cars. The only great scenery
is at the crossing Of the pass, 5000 feet
altitude. Away to the south are the
snow-covered Rocky mountains. The
curves have been straightened out,
the grades reduced and fast time is
made. The trains are equipped with
Pullmans, tourists, dining cars and
chair cars and are kept very comfort
able.
From Ogden to San Francisco the
new Southern Pacific line is over the
Lucien cutoff-27 miles across great
Salt Lake-at sunrise the first fine
scenery we catch glimpse of on this
train. 1t is like riding across Il great
arm of the sea. The blue waves are
fleeked and streaked with foam and
chase each other with the measured
rythm of the ocean swells, The Salt
Lake scenery is grand, great expanses
of blue-green water framed about with
purple mountains. AS the sun rose
each peak took on rosy glow and
shimmered with white light where COW
cred with snow. An old miner was
quite excited by this trip over steel
rails over the inland sea. He would
never cross it again. 1t was contrary
to nature this running trains over a
great bottomless lake. Steamboats,
were all right but Pullman ears among
the whitecaps was too swift for him.
The acquisition of the railroad from
lOgden to Sacramento by the Hartman
syndicate has resulted in the practical
building of new track through Ne
vada. The old grade is visible from
the new, and what a pitiful contrast
it makes The crooked, winding sue
cession Of compound curves and short
letter "s' twists has been displaced
by tangents connecting great sweep
| ing two and three degree curves capa-
BILE of high speed. Heavy rock cuts
and big fills, tunnels and trestles Ell
able the trains to shoot along over
easy grades, and far below one sees
the old dump over which for 20 years
crept the transcontinental trains at
snail pace. All Thursday forenoon we
climbed up from the Salt Lake basin,
through the great American desert to
the divide that lets us over into Ne
vado-5900 feet high. In all this re-
gion drinking wateA has to be hauled
by ears-is worth $500 to $1,000 bar
rel in the mines. The line of the rail-
road has almost been rebuilt This
ia the section into which the millions
of the Equitable Life Insurance com
pany have been plunged by Hartman
and his associates. The grade from
the Salt Lake up TO the summit Is a
natural one, but the top is not as high
as the Union Pacific crossing OF the
Rockie,-Sherman hill where the alti'
tude is nearly 5000 feet.
Nevada, the wonder state, is seen
al its worst from the trains. stock
eorrals, mountains of wool in sacks,
ruddy-faeed miners, coppercomplex'
ioned Indians, Pintes and Shoshones'
dust storms, bitches Of yellow water
that is Nevada. OF all the rivers that
arise or run into Nevada, only one
gets out into the Colorado. One fine
stream--the Truekee.-we followed up
into the mountains 100 feet wide and
8 feet deep-it flows into the sagebrush
desert spreads into lake and dis
appears. AT hOod-times the lake IN
undates the sage plains for miles be