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Big Fill
The Big Fill was an engineering project on the First transcontinental railroad in the U.S. state of Utah. To avoid a costly tunnel through mountainous terrain east of Promontory, Utah, Promontory Summit, Central Pacific Railroad, Central Pacific engineers mapped an alternate route that still needed to span the deep Spring Creek Ravine. Events of 1869 In February 1869, the construction firm of Benson, Farr, & West began construction on a raised bed across the ravine. Over two months, 500 workers hauled more than of material to build the rail bed. At its completion on April 26, the fill extended for and up to a depth of . The cuts for the Big Fill required 1,500 kegs of black powder. Big Trestle east of the Big Fill, the Union Pacific line was also attempting to cross the same ravine. The Union Pacific was several months behind Central Pacific, and opted to build a wooden Trestle bridge, trestle instead of using an earthen fill, starting on March 28. The Big Trestle was buil ...
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Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incorporated in 1861, CPRR ceased operation in 1885 when it was acquired by Southern Pacific Railroad as a leased line. Following the completion of the Pacific Railroad Surveys in 1855, several national proposals to build a transcontinental railroad failed because of the energy consumed by political disputes over slavery. With the secession of Southern United States, the South in 1861, the modernizers in the Republican Party (US), Republican Party controlled the US Congress. They passed Pacific Railroad Acts, legislation in 1862 authorizing the central rail route with financing in the form of land grants and government railroad bond, which were all eventually repaid with interest. The government and the railroads both shared ...
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Union Pacific
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, with which it shares a duopoly on transcontinental freight rail lines in the Western, Midwestern and Southern United States. Founded in 1862, the original Union Pacific Rail Road was part of the first transcontinental railroad project, later known as the Overland Route. Over the next century, UP absorbed the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company, the Western Pacific Railroad, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. In 1996, the Union Pacific merged with Southern Pacific Transportation Company, itself a giant system that was absorbed by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. ...
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First Transcontinental Railroad
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants.Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §2 & §3 Building was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds.Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, §5 & §6 The Western Pacific Railroad Company built of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/ Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built from the road's eastern terminus at the Mis ...
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Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its west by Nevada. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin. Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europe ...
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Promontory, Utah
Promontory is an area of high ground in Box Elder County, Utah, United States, 32 mi (51 km) west of Brigham City and 66 mi (106 km) northwest of Salt Lake City. Rising to an elevation of 4,902 feet (1,494 m) above sea level, it lies to the north of the Promontory Mountains and the Great Salt Lake. It is notable as the location of Promontory Summit, where the First transcontinental railroad from Sacramento to Omaha in the United States was officially completed on May 10, 1869. The location is sometimes confused with Promontory Point, a location further south along the southern tip of the Promontory Mountains. Both locations are significant to the Overland Route; Promontory Summit is where the original, abandoned alignment crossed the Promontory Mountains while the modern alignment, called the Lucin Cutoff, crosses the mountains at Promontory Point. By the summer of 1868, the Central Pacific (CP) had completed the first rail route through the Sierra ...
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Trestle Bridge
A trestle bridge is a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by closely spaced frames. A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used to support a stool or a pair of isosceles triangles joined at their apices by a plank or beam such as the support structure for a trestle table. Each supporting frame is a bent. A trestle differs from a viaduct in that viaducts have towers that support much longer spans and typically have a higher elevation. Timber and iron trestles (i.e. bridges) were extensively used in the 19th century, the former making up from 1 to 3 percent of the total length of the average railroad. In the 21st century, steel and sometimes concrete trestles are commonly used to bridge particularly deep valleys, while timber trestles remain common in certain areas. Many timber trestles were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the expectation that they would be temporary. Timber trestles were use ...
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Golden Spike
The golden spike (also known as The Last Spike) is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The term ''last spike'' has been used to refer to one driven at the usually ceremonial completion of any new railroad construction projects, particularly those in which construction is undertaken from two disparate origins towards a common meeting point. The spike is now displayed in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. History Completing the last link in the transcontinental railroad with a spike of gold was the brainchild of David Hewes, a San Francisco financier and contractor.Bowman, J.N"Driving the Last Spike at Promontory, 1869" ''California Historical Society Quarterly'', Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, June 1957, pp. 9 ...
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Ogden, Utah
Ogden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau, making it Utah's eighth largest city. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history,Maia Armaleo
"Grand Junction: Where Two Lines Raced to Drive the Last Spike in Transcontinental Track," ''American Heritage'', June/July 2006.
and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a convenient location for and

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Lucin Cutoff
The Lucin Cutoff is a railroad line in Utah, United States that runs from Ogden to its namesake in Lucin. The most prominent feature of the cutoff was a railroad trestle crossing the Great Salt Lake, which was in use from 1904 until the late 1950s, when it was replaced by an earthen causeway. The cutoff was originally built by the Southern Pacific Railroad as a means of shortening the First transcontinental railroad. Today the cutoff is owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad as a significant part of the Lakeside Subdivision, which runs from Ogden to Wells, Nevada, and is one of the many subdivisions of the Overland Route. Due to the obstruction of water flow caused by the Lucin Cutoff, the Great Salt Lake appears to be different colors in aerial photographs; water north of the Cutoff appears red or brown, while water south of the Cutoff is more green. History Original construction Built by the Southern Pacific Company (SP) between February 1902 and March 1904, the ...
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Golden Spike National Historic Site
Golden Spike National Historical Park is a United States National Historic Sites (United States), National Historical Park located at Promontory Summit, Utah, Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake in east-central Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The nearest city is Corinne, Utah, Corinne, approximately east-southeast of the site. It commemorates the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad (North America), first Transcontinental Railroad where the Central Pacific Railroad and the first Union Pacific Railroad met on May 10, 1869. The final joining of the rails spanning the continent was signified by the driving of the ceremonial Golden Spike. Background The Golden Spike National Historical Park encompasses . Initially just when it was established in 1957, limited to the area near the junction of the two rail systems, the site was expanded by in 1965 through land swaps and acquisition of approximately a strip of land mostly wide along of the former ra ...
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Rail Infrastructure In Utah
Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' (1967 film), a film by Geoffrey Jones for British Transport Films *'' Mirattu'' or ''Rail'', a Tamil-language film and its Telugu dub Magazines * ''Rail'' (magazine), a British rail transport periodical * ''Rails'' (magazine), a former New Zealand based rail transport periodical Other arts *The Rails, a British folk-rock band * Rail (theater) or batten, a pipe from which lighting, scenery, or curtains are hung Technology *Rails framework or Ruby on Rails, a web application framework *Rail system (firearms), a mounting system for firearm attachments *Front engine dragster *Runway alignment indicator lights, a configuration of an approach lighting system *Rule Augmented Interconnect Layout, a specification for expressing guidelines for prin ...
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