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From: mdelvec952 AT aol DOT com
Date: Sat, 10 May 2014 14:18:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Golden Spike has Tri-State-area ties
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Today is May 10th, the 145th Anniversary of the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, Utah. This was the first news event broadcast live coast-to-coast in that wires from a telegraph key were connected to the silver hammer and the golden spike. When the hammer meet the spike, a telegrapher clicked "done." The significance of that event is still felt, and the reasons for when and where are rarely appreciated today. The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 that created the transcontinental railroad was debated in Congress for a few years, the routing for which a major issue since the region through which the railroad traversed would develop and create commerce (and taxes) quickly. The southerly route was less expensive and easier to build, but longer than the northerly, more mountainous routes. When the southern states pulled out of Congress in 1861 in the lead up to what would be known later as The Civil War, the debates were over and a northerly route and track gauge was chosen. The signature of Abe Lincoln's pen on the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 also created the Union Pacific Railroad, today one of the largest and most successful corporations in the world. It is, indeed, "America's Railroad," still using essentially the same paint scheme created in the 1930s for its streamliners and diesels. Before that event at Promontory, folks wishing to go to California from the East Coast had to start walking at the first sign of grass (for grazing horses and oxen) to cross the Sierra Nevada before the snows. The Donner Party left late and got stranded. After May 10, 1869, that six-month walk (or 3-5 months on a sailing ship) became six days on a train. Up in Canada, a condition of British Columbia becoming a Province rather than part o the United States was that the Canadian Government guarantee a rail connection, thus the Canadian Pacific built west to Vancouver. CPR's last spike was driven in Craigellachie, British Columbia, at 9:22 am on November 7, 1885. Where the Promontory event has significant ties to New Jersey is that Union Pacific's 119 was built in 1868 in Paterson, at the Rogers Locomotive Works, the site of a fine State museum today. Central Pacific's "Jupiter" No.60 was built in Schenectady and arrived in California by boat that sailed around the southern-most tip of South America.

Mike Del Vecchio


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