Welcome to Golden Spike National Historic Site.  This is the part of our vacation that I really wanted to visit and Terra and the kids - not so much.  As you may or may not know, Golden Spike was the point where the east and the west rail roads joined to create the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.  The railroad was connected in 1869 and it happened to be in Northern Utah.  The site is called Promontory Summit.  It is literally in the middle of nowhere.  We had to drive about 45 minutes from the interstate to reach this spot.  It is about 20 miles south of Idaho.

We arrived just in time to watch the 119 engine pull out of its storage building and head down the tracks to pull up in front of the museum.  The 119 was the locomotive chosen to commemorate this event from the Central Pacific Railroad.  This railroad was in the east and extended all the way to Lincoln, NE.  From here it was decided that it would extend westward and meet up with the Union Pacific Railroad.  As the Central Pacific was based in the east all of the locomotives were coal fired.  This engine is also coal fired and they drove it out for us to look at.

Every day, they drive the two engines out to meet on the tracks very similar to what happened when the railroads were joined in the 1800s.  The Jupiter was the locomotive chosen from Union Pacific's fleet to meet at the joining.  The UP was based on the west coast and did not have an abundant supply of coal, so those locomotives were all wood fired.  The replica of the Jupiter was also wood fired and running.

It may be hard to tell, but if you look at the stacks on both locomotives you will notice they are very different shaped.  The large stack is on a wood fired boiler and the small stack on the coal fired boiler.  These locomotives are fire tube boilers and the larger stack is required to aid in producing the chimney affect to the firebox will draft appropriately and the engineer can make the necessary steam pressure to move the train.  The balloon stack also contained a spark arrestor to not let burning embers fly out of the stack.  This engine was commissioned in 1869 and in 1893 it was converted to coal and sold to the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railroad (designated GVG&N #1).  It was used by the mines until it was scrapped in 1909.  Replicas were built in 1979 and one is at Golden Spike, the other is in San Francisco in a museum.

The 19 was commissioned in 1868 and also scrapped in 1903.  Replicas were also made in 1979.  The 119 spent most of its life as a freight engine based in Ogden, UT.  The history around the railroad is fascinating to me, so I thought it appropriate to torture the kids with it some on this trip.

The section of track (15.5 miles of it) that Promontory Summit sits on was donated to the National Park Service for the creation of this Golden Spike Site.  Shortly after the railroad was joined, a shorter route, built across the Great Salt Lake was finished and this section of track was abandoned.  Now the only trains to travel this section of rail are the Jupiter and 119 (both replicas).  The park service had stairs built such that you could climb up and look at the controls inside of the cab.  On Saturdays they do a live enactment of the joining of the railroads.  There were actually 4 "golden" spikes used to joint the two rail lines.

Before the last spike was driven, three other commemorative spikes, presented on behalf of the other three members of the Central Pacific's Big Four, had been driven in the pre-bored laurel tie: A second, lower-quality gold spike, supplied by the San Francisco News Letter was made of $200 worth of gold and inscribed: With this spike the San Francisco News Letter offers its homage to the great work which has joined the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A silver spike, supplied by the State of Nevada; forged, rather than cast, of 25 troy ounces (780 g) of unpolished silver. A blended iron, silver and gold spike, supplied by the Arizona Territory, engraved: Ribbed with iron clad in silver and crowned with gold Arizona presents her offering to the enterprise that has banded a continent and dictated a pathway to commerce. The golden spike was made of 17.6-karat (73%) copper-alloyed gold, and weighed 14.03 troy ounces (436 g). It was dropped into a pre-drilled hole in the laurel ceremonial last tie, and gently tapped into place with a silver ceremonial spike maul. The spike was engraved on all four sides.

None of the ceremonial spikes spent the night in the tie, as fear of them being stolen.  They were inserted and removed.  They now reside in museums.  One gold one in California, and one in New York. Here is a photo of the event celebrating the joining of the two railroads in 1869.  If you look on the back of a Utah State Quarter you will also find a similar photo (minus the people). One interesting note, in this photo, the name of the guy circled in red is not known.  The railroad only know his last name and not his first.  This photo was hanging in the visitor center and he just had a blank for a first name.  I guess record keeping was not what it is now.

After we left the park we had to stop at the Golden Spike Cafe located about 20 miles east of Promontroy Summit in Corinne, UT.  The sign out front boasts the best burgers in the state of Utah.  I don't have too much experience, but I would be willing to be there are probably 100 if not more burger places in the state that would contest that title.  On a side note, but burgers were not that bad...

After the festivities at Golden Spike we drove down to Manti and watch the "Morman Miracle" pageant.  This was Terra's request.  The pageant (I have to admit I am biased as I don't like plays) wasn't that good.  I thought it started too late (9:30 pm) lasted too long (2 hours) and was too inaccurate (it portrayed the life of Joseph Smith, translating the Book of Mormon, and then the migration out west to settle Utah).  3 of the 5 kids fell asleep during its performance.  I may have enjoyed it more if I didn't keep waiting for it to end.  Perhaps if I knew how long it was I may have enjoyed it more (or I would have tried to convince Terra not to go to something that lasted 2 hours). It did find a profound line in the play - that was when good compromises with evil; evil wins.

The next day on our way home we stopped at Glenn Canyon Damn and toured the visitor center and the damn itself.  The tour even took us down to the power house.  It was impressive to see the rather large turbines.  One was out for maintenance and was sitting on the floor for our viewing pleasure.  The vehicle bridge built in the background was the first thing built when the damn was to be built.  This is the original bridge built for the damn construction.  Page was also built to support the damn construction.  It is hard to believe that a project such as this would ever come to fruition today with the strength of the environmental movement in this country.

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