A Hand-Built Railroad

A Hand-Built Railroad

NPS Photo

The long winding grade you are traveling and the Union Pacific grade on your right are testimony to the organization of the workers. Second Lieutenant Charles Currier, U.S. Infantry, one of the first men to travel on the completed transcontinental railroad, observed a fill like this under construction.

"I can count five hundred men and one hundred fifty carts drawn by patient mules hauling dirt to grade the permanent track... there are plows, scrapers, & etc. The mules are well trained; they climb up and down the bank, stop at the right place and wait 'til their load is dumped, then take their place in the line and go back to get another. They look like ants. The place is black with laborers; they stand as near together as they can shovel. It's a funny sight to see five hundred shovels going into the air at one time."

Do you see the rock culvert in the Union Pacific grade? This and others like it were laid without mortar in 1869 and have survived the years. Watch for others in the park.

• Sidings

  
  

  The grade widens here. In later years a siding was constructed at this site so that trains traveling in opposite directions could pass. Lower-priority trains, usually freights, were required to wait on a siding while higher-priority trains, pulling passengers or mail, continued on. Sidings were built about every three to five miles along the route.

  Credit / Author:

  Nicki Castoro

  Date created:

  04/12/2025

  Audio Transcript

  The grade widens here. In later years a siding was constructed at this site so that trains traveling in opposite directions could pass. Lower-priority trains, usually freights, were required to wait on a siding while higher-priority trains, pulling passengers or mail, continued on. Sidings were built about every three to five miles along the route.