Re: A little beyond Como on the line to Buena Vista

Mark Petersen Wrote:
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> That's a really unappreciated part of RR history.
> The amount of manual labor that went into to
> building so much of the country's RR
> infrastructure. Picks, Shovels and maybe horse
> drawn Fresno scrapers. Its also a testimony to the
> engineers and surveyors who laid out those routes
> trying to take advantage of the terrain where they
> could to minimize earthwork.Not always the
> shortest route vs. least earth to be moved.
>
> Steven Ambrose touches on this in "Nothing Like it
> in the World" about the building of the
> Transcontinental RR.


In addition to the shovels and strong backbones, don't forget black powder...barrels and barrels of black powder. The Transcontinental isn't necessarily even the best example: The Union Pacific was a giant scam (see Credit Mobilier) while the Central Pacific tried to be as well-built as conditions allowed, hence why it took it so long to build through the Sierras. The narrow gauge movement of the 1870's especially was in many cases very much an effort to reduce construction costs by following terrain--accepting more curves, longer mileage, and steeper grades in return for sort-of affordable construction. Contrasting this was European-style construction, at its most extreme that of the Great Western under Brunel's engineering. Both methodologies are impressive in their own right, the former in the lengths it'd go to in avoiding problems and dealing with impossible terrain, and the latter for its tenacity in building for the future and tackling problems head-on.