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Oral History |
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By Pappy Clay - February 6th, 1969 Promontory Hill between Blue Creek and Rozel, and Kelton Hill between Kelton and Matlin, were the only two hills on the Salt Lake Division which required helper engines, or "Hogs" as they were generally called, to get regular traffic over those two humps and keep it rolling on schedule between Ogden, Utah and Montello, Nevada, between the years 1870 and 1900. Of those two hills, it was Promontory which was much the toughest, so two Heavy Duty Hogs worked from Promontory Summit both ways because that was where the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific met in 1869 and extensive transfer yards and coal sheds had already been established there but Promontory Station was the driest station on the whole Division, yet, by using the well supplied water tanks at Blue Creek and Rozel on each trip down hill, both for the Hogs and the regular road engines, the water problem was managed quite well. There was a water tank in the Promontory yards just for emergency use since all the water in it had first to be pumped, by a steam pumping plant, out of the Bear River at Corinne into water cars and these cars hauled up Promontory Hill then pumped from the water cars by another steam pumping plant up into the water tank at Promontory, so this water supply was used as little as possible. Those Hogs were at different times of different manufacture but this writer remembers best two 4-8-0 Baldwins with straight stacks that worked the hill between 1888 and 1893 when traffic was heavy both ways. For instance, this might be one run. A Hog would couple onto an eastbound freight at Rozel after both engines had filled with water and stay coupled clear up and over Promontory hill down the east side to Blue Creek then uncouple and get turned around on the big turntable east of the water tank. During this period both Hogs were equipped with Westinghouse automatic air brakes and certain valves could be set so that the engineer of the road engine could handle the air for the whole train while the air-pump on the Hog just supplied extra air pressure to the engineer of the road engine. In going down east Promontory Hill the quadrants of both locomotives could be notched well up to center which gave extra braking power through back air pressure in the steam cylinders. The Hog at Blue Creek would take on water and wait for the next westbound train that needed help up the hill or else couple onto a half dozen cars from the back storage sidetrack at Blue Creek and shuttle them up to the storage yards at Promontory. Sometimes while helping a westbound, the Hog might uncouple on the practically level track just before reaching Promontory Station, and go on ahead into the old "Y" on the south side of the track and let the train go past into Promontory, then come out of the "Y" headed in either direction desired and "coal up" in the Promontory yards. Sometimes a Hog would just back down east Promontory Hill to shuttle up a short string of "loads" from the Blue Creek storage siding to the Promontory storage yards, if there was time to do this between regular trains. Between 1870 and 1890 was more or less a period of mixed train braking, progressing from hand braking to straight air braking to automatic air braking, with often a combination of hand braking and air braking on the same train. In the very early days of railroading, from 1840 to 1865, hand brakes were the only type of used and only shortly before the driving of the Golden Spike, did young Westinghouse invent "straight air braking". Going down a steep, winding hill like east Promontory, in the 1870s, and engineer could control only about fifteen loaded freight cars efficiently so sometimes the "air would be cut" near the middle of the train and the engineer would control the brakes on the front half of the train while the two brakemen would be assigned to properly setting the hand brakes on the rear half of the train. This "duel control" could not always be properly synchronized and on certain occasions it created certain stresses between locomotive and the caboose that may have accounted for several mysterious wrecks between Promontory and Kolmar that occurred between 1877 and 1890. In the early days of "link and pin" coupling and dead drawheads there was not much available "slack" for getting a cold train started that had been standing for some time giving time for the "box oil" to be squeezed from between the brasses and the wheel journals, so a road engine say at Blue Creek, might have to back into the train and jerk ahead a number of times before getting a whole train of 25 or 30 cars limbered up and moving ahead. Later when all the cars had "spring drawheads" this cold starting was easier but when a powerful but slower Promontory Hog coupled on ahead of the road engine then that train started moving on the first pull, that is if it didn't break a link and cut the air line, which very seldom happened. Like all heavy duty Hogs, those Promontory twelve-wheelers had comparatively small "drivers" and large diameter cylinders which slowed their top speed but gave them great pulling power. In the early 1880's there was a small roundhouse at Blue Creek just back south from the turntable but when the twelve wheeler super Hogs were put in service they were too long for that roundhouse and when the new longer turntable was substituted in about 1888 the old round house was torn down because the new Hogs were so built that their steam and water pipes would not freeze up even when standing idle in zero weather for some time. When the Ogden-Lucin Cut-Off across the Great Salt Lake was put into operation in 1904 and became the main line, then the old line over Promontory Hill became a bi-weekly branch line between Corinne and Kelton only and Hogs on the Hill were needed no longer then whatever type of Helpers were in operation at that time were transferred to other runs unknown to this writer and the Golden Spike Era came to an end. During the 1890's the name "Central Pacific" had been changed to "Southern Pacific System" and the 1869 terminal at Promontory Station had been transferred to Ogden, Utah and but for history and a "Golden Spike Monument" on the spot, old Promontory Station has completely disappeared from the face of the earth. |
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