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Visitor
Center
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Films
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Ranger
Presentations
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Big
Fill Walk
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Auto
Tour
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Steam
Locomotives
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Nearby
Attractions
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Big
Trestle
- Just one hundred fifty feet away from the
nearly completed Big Fill, Mormon contractors
Sharp & Young began building the Union
Pacific's Big Trestle on March 28, 1869. Since
the Union Pacific was already behind the CP in
construction at Spring Creek ravine, and
completion of the transcontinental railroad
appeared imminent, it was decided that speed,
not quality was the goal. On May 5, just three
days before the scheduled completion ceremony,
and only thirty-six days since building began,
the last spike went into the eighty-five foot
high, four hundred foot long Big Trestle.
After going across the trestle, one newspaper
reporter noted, "Nothing I could write would
convey an idea of the flimsy character of that
structure." Another correspondent indicated, "It
will shake the nerves of the stoutest hearts of
railroad travellers when they se that a few feet
of round timbers and seven-inch spikes are
expected to uphold a train in motion."
In all fairness to the Union Pacific,
the Big Trestle was never intended to be a
permanent structure. Had the UP been granted
final control of the line from Promontory to
Ogden, plans called for replacing the trestle
with UP's own big fill. When the CP gained
control of the line, the trestle was indeed
abandoned in favor of CP's sturdy Big Fill.
Within a few years, nothing remained of the Big
Trestle except for Andrew J. Russell's
photographs and the abutments that can still be
seen today.
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