Okay, so it’s 1869, and you have been building the first transcontinental railroad - laying track eastward on the Central Pacific across Utah
Okay, so it’s 1869, and you have been building the first transcontinental railroad - laying track eastward on the Central Pacific across Utah…
The competing Union Pacific has bragged about putting down four miles of track in one day. Then, you beat that by doing six miles in one day. Then, the UP did eight miles...
So now, your boss, Charles Crocker, has decided that you can do 10 miles in one day...
And, you’re going to get four day’s pay if you can do it.
Construction Superintendent Strobridge is a bit dubious, but Crocker assures him that he has it all planned out. The ties will be distributed ahead of time, the gangs will lay down the 500-pound rails, each spiker will drive home his particular spike, and the levelers and fillers will perform their tasks, all carefully choreographed with no man getting in another’s way.
Dawn comes on April 28th, and off you go. Union Pacific officials are invited to watch the work…
At midday, you’ve done six miles! You stop for an hour lunch. You know you’re going to win. The boss offers to give you the rest of the day off, and replace your gang with another. You tell him “No thanks.” You want to finish this yourself. You decide to name the spot where you stopped for lunch. What’s the perfect name?
Camp Victory.
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The first photo below is of Camp Victory taken a bit later. Victory (later renamed Rozel) is just a bit west of Promontory Summit. Today, it is part of Golden Spike National Historic Park. You can drive your car to it, on the original roadbed of the Central Pacific.
That day, the track gang carried 3520 rails averaging 560 pounds each, 55,000 spikes, 14,080 bolts, and other material making a total of 4,462,000 pounds.
At the end of the day, the Central Pacific ran an engine over the newly laid track at 40 miles an hour, just to prove that the work had been done properly.
The imposing man in the suit standing on the flat car is Construction Superintendent James H. Strobridge, and standing next to him is chief track layer Horace Minkler.
The most accurate book on the subject is “Empire Express,” by David Haward Bain.
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