TCRR Terrain

The construction of the Transcontinental Railroad in just 6 short years was a major feat of engineering.  (I don’t think California could do the same today!)  The Union Pacific built 1085 miles east from Omaha, Nebraska.  They started there because the eastern U.S. already had an extensive rail system.  The Central Pacific built 690 miles west from Sacramento.  (They built another 132 miles to San Francisco, but that wasn’t considered part of the TCRR.)

That makes the Central Pacific workers look like slackers, until you see what they were up against, which is the subject of this pictorial post.


Map and Profile of the Pacific Railroad, C.H. Wells, 1867, Harpers Weekly.  Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. Digitized and simplified, with additional detail and color added, c. 2017 by Carolyn VanGorkom.  Used by permission.

Notice the bottom of the map has a profile chart showing the elevations the railroad companies had to cross. But simple elevation doesn’t tell the whole story.

After all, the pass over the Rockies tops out at 8,242 feet, while the pass over the Sierras is only 7,042 feet above sea level.  But the incline to Cheyenne, WY is averaged out all across the 500 miles from Omaha, NE.  The summit near Truckee, CA is only 90 miles from the Sacramento Valley floor.  We can thank Theodore Judah for that engineering miracle!  Below are images of the terrain they crossed. 


Rugged Sierra terrain, then and now.  Left: New Hampshire Falls on the Yuba River, circa 1865-69, by Alfred A. Hart, Library of Congress.  Right: Modern photo of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, by Frank Ravizza, pixabay.com.
Donner Lake, then and now.  Left: Donner Lake from Summit Tunnel, circa 1865-69, by Alfred A. Hart, Library of Congress.  Right: Modern photo of Donner Lake, by Lisa Redfern, pixabay.com, cropped.
Mountain peaks, then and now.  Left: Summit of Castle Peak, circa 1865-69, by Alfred A. Hart, Library of Congress, colorized by The Novel Historian, 2019.  Right: Modern photo of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, by ddzphoto, pixabay.com.
Trains in the Sierra Nevada.  Left: Miller’s Bluffs, near Crystal Lake, Library of Congress.  Right: Truckee River, approaching the Eastern Summits, Library of Congress.  Both photos circa 1865-69, by Alfred A. Hart.
Alkali Flats and Salt Basins, then and now.  Left: Construction Train on Alkali Desert, Nevada, circa 1865-69, by Alfred A. Hart, Library of Congress, colorized by The Novel Historian, 2019.  Right: Modern photo of Nevada, by Mikanui, pixabay.com.
Great Salt Lake, Utah, near where the CPRR and the UPRR connected at Promontory, then and now.  Left: The Jupiter Engine carries personnel for a photo shoot near Salt Lake, from Monument Point, circa 1865-69, by Alfred A. Hart, Library of Congress, colorized by The Novel Historian, 2019.  Right: Modern day photo of the Great Salt Lake, by Brigitte Werner, pixabay.com.

The whole reason I became The Novel Historian is because I wrote a historical novel set in 1871 on the Transcontinental Railroad.  That makes the 150th anniversary of the TCRR all the more special around here. We’ll be celebrating with a new pictorial post every day this week. Join us for all five posts in this series! If you’re interested in reading the novel, you can find it here on Amazon Kindle: Transcontinental Runaway. (Affliliate link. See full disclosure here.)

Note:  The historic photos by Alfred A. Hart were stereographic prints.  They have been cropped to highlight the content for modern audiences.

Featured Image credit: The Express Train, Currier & Ives, 1870, Library of Congress.  Colorized 2018 by Carolyn Van Gorkom.  Used by permission.