The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1915-05-28
ACROSS The
SALT LAKE
Marvellous Bridge Carries
Freight and Passengers
Four and 0nr-Half Million DOL
lars Spent to Com
plete Span.

lHOuSdHuS Vi EdSteTnerS VINO at
tined the San Francisco and San
Diego Fairs this year will cross the
Great Salt Lake on train.
In the sixties the Union Pacific
Railroad was built west from Omaha
and the Central Pacific (now part
of the Southern Pacific) was built
east from San Francisco When the
builders came to the Great Salt Lake
basin at Ogden they veered the road
to the north and went around the
lake to Lucien. a distance of 147
miles. In third of century en-
gines grew five times as powerful
Freight trains would carry five times
as much weight. Where once one
train a day ran each week a dozen
now puff around the lake, pulled by
powerful engines over the mountains
/ 1900 feet high, down into the valley
and up the mountains again and in
to Lucien, Utah. From Ogden to
Lucien.as the crow or, perhaps. the
aeroplane flies, the distance was
about 1913 miles, 30 miles of which
was covered by the waters of Great
Salt Lake from one to thirty feet
deep. Weighed against the water
was level roadway 1913 miles long.
with no mountains to climb. But
there washed the salt waters of the
Great Salt Lake.
In 1902 engineers decided on
trestle bridge 90 miles long. OF the
20 miles of trestle IL in the end
were to be filled with earth. So of
the % 4 miles through water nearly
l6 miles were to be a solid ridge of
earth Is feet wide at the top and II
feet above the water. The engineers
decided to build a mile and a quarter
of trestle week, over 1000 feet for
each work day.
In June. 1912. train loads of steel
rail reached the lake. In July came
the first piles. Many of them were
so long that three cars had to be
used TO carry them. Three thousand
men went to work At night men
worked in the gravel pits by electric
light. IN the cold of winter and the
heat of summer there was no stop
ping.
Sixteen hundred and eighty tons
of fresh water were used each day,
all of it brought by train-some 80
miles. some 100 miles. Over $4,000
trees were cut down to make piles.
On November 10, 1903. the track
from the east and track from the
west were Joined. The great bridge
across the lake is now solid path,
except for IL miles, which is a
trestle.
Every fifteen feet five piles are
driven in a row crosswise to the
track. They are fastened together
on their sides with heavy timbers,
four inches and eight inches thick.
<hNAOS thCii topo anu JoAiiiAS thOhi
together is a heavy beam IS feet
long and foot square. Connecting
this beam with the next set of piles
Is feet away are IL heavy timbers
laid lengthwise with the track !
Above these stringers is a plank floor
three inches thick. Above that is
coat of asphalt, then a foot or more |
of rock ballast on which the track !
and rails are laid. The floor of the |
trestle is l6 feet wide. The cutoff |
from Lucien to Ogden is almost as
level as a table. For SO miles there |
is no grade. For 80 miles more the |
grade is so slight that an average |
person would need to travel half |
mile to rise his own height. Nowhere |
is the grade over five inches to the |
hundred feet. The track is above /
the water 10 feet. The solid way |
has cut off one north arm of the
lake into which the Bear River flows.
This has made that part of the lake
so fresh that it has frozen over in
winter. though the more salty water
on the other side of the track never
freezes. Four and a half million
dollars has been spent to make this
acknowledgements News.