Aware that some men were going to lose their lives before the railroad was completed, Strobridge and his chief engineer set their Chinese to doing the job. After arming the workers with sledges, iron hand drills and kegs of black powder, they were lowered down the face of the cliff in large wicker baskets. Then, suspended against the mountain, blasters drilled holes in the cliff, tamped them full of powder and set the fuses. At a signal the men were hauled back up, hopefully high enough to be out of the way when the powder exploded. Blast by blast, the route was advanced. Amazingly, no lives were lost as the race continued to see which railroad, the Central Pacific or the Union Pacific, would reach their meeting place.
To learn more, on the Internet, about the building of the railroad please see:
The History of Railroad Innovations
http://inventors.about.com/library/inven...
Eastward to Promontory
http://cprr.org/Museum/Eastward.html
Every body out now and help cut trees. We're running out of railroad ties, and here's a link to:
The Railroad, part 12, Cow Towns, Cody, and Custer.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1379...
THE WILD WILD WEST HAS ARRIVED AT SUITE 101 UNIVERSITY
To get in on the action check out these two courses:
THE GREAT AMERICAN WEST, 1861 to 1876,
http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17161...
BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN, 1872 to 1876
http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17638...
The source for this article is:
Wallace, Robert. The Railroaders: The Old West. Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1973.
