Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1916-07-07
Bridge salt LAKE
ENGINEERS ACCOMPLISH RE-
MARKABLE FEAT IN WEST.
Build Trestle % Miles Long, Large
Part of Which Has Been Filled In
and Made Solid Highway
Across the Waters.

In the sixties the Union Pacific rail
road was built west from Omaha and
the Central Pacific NOW part of the
Southern Pacitic) was built, each 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 lat miles. In a
third Of century engines grew five
times as powerful. Freight trains
would carry five times as much weight.
Where once one train day ran each
way 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 into Lucien, Utah. From Ogden
to Lucien, as the crow or, perhaps,
the aeroplane flies, the distance was
about 1913 miles, 80 miles of which was
covered by the waters of Great Salt
Lake from / to 80 feet deep. Weighed
against the water was a level roadway
! 103 miles long, with no mountains to
climb. But there washed the salt
waters Of the great lakes.
In 1902 engineers decided on tres
| tie bridge % miles long. or the 70
miles of trestle II in the end were to be
! filled with earth. So of the 2712 miles
| through water nearly 16 miles were to
I be a solid ridge of earth 16 feet wide
1 OF "a fnn nn1 IT ahnUn tho a.
ter. The engineers decided to build a
! mile and a quarter of trestle week,
over 1000 feet for each work day.
In June, 1902, trainloads of steel
rails 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 stopping.
Sixteen hundred and eighty tons Of
fresh water were used each day, all Of
it brought by train-some so miles,
some 100 miles. Over $4,000 trees
were cut down to make piles. On No
vember 49, 1908, the track from the
east and the track from the west were
joined. The great bridge across the
lake is now solid path, except for II
miles, which is trestle.
Every Is feet piles are driven in
row crosswise to the track. They
are fastened together on their sides
with heavy timbers, four inches and
eight inches thick. Across their tops
and joining them together is heavy
beam IS feet long and a foot square.
set of piles Is feet away are II heavy
timbers laid lengthwise with the track
Above these stringers is a plank floor
three inches thick. Above that is q
coat of asphalt, then foot or more
Of rock ballast on which the track and
rails are laid. The floor Of the trestle
is 16 feet wide. The cutoff from Lu
Glen to Ogden is almost as level as a
table. For sc miles there is no grade
For 80 miles more the grade is sc
slight that an average person would
need to travel a 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 Beal
river flows. This has made that part
Of the lake so fresh that it has frozer
over in winter, though the more salty
water on the other side Of the tracl
never freezes. Four and half million
dollars has been spent to make this
highway Indianapolis News.