Golden Spike National Historic Site, UT

We are working our way south and finally making it to a site we've seen the signs for a few times before. As a kid I remember the story of the building of the first transcontinental railroad and the

Site of Promontory and the meeting
of the tracks

Site of the last tie and golden spike

driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory. I remember being impressed by the story so this was one of those places that I had to stop at this time through the area.

Golden Spike National Historic Site brings to life the amazing accomplishment of building a railroad across country without aid of modern equipment. Using picks, shovels, hand carts, horse drawn scrapers, black powder and a workforce of over 10,000 men they built the 1,776 mile railroad. Ok, that summary is why it was so fascinating to me. There is a small exhibit room and a great film at the visitor center that should make it fascinating to anyone.

At this historic site you don't see the original ties, tracks and spikes. They were reclaimed/recycled for the war effort. However, you do see original railroad grades across the Promontory Mountains. You can actually drive on part of the grade to get a bit of an appreciation of what can be done by hand. It doesn't match the effort of blasting 15 tunnels across the Sierra Nevada Mountains where they made progress at only inches per day, but at least we get to see some of the work that was done.

A low cut along the
East Auto Tour loop

A low cut along the
East Auto Tour loop. Piles of rock
dug out.

A section along the East Auto
Tour loop. On the original grade.