Tracklaying race of 1869

The tracklaying race of 1869 was an unofficial contest between tracklaying crews of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, held during the construction of the first transcontinental railroad. The competition was to determine who would first reach the meeting place at Promontory, Utah. Starting in 1868, the railroad crews set, and subsequently broke, each other's world records for the longest length of track laid in a single day. This culminated in the April 28, 1869, record set by Chinese and Irish crews of the Central Pacific who laid 10 miles 56 feet (16.111 km) of track in one day. That record was broken in August 1870, by about 1,000 feet (300 m), by two crews of the Kansas Pacific, working from opposite ends of the same track.

History

Rivalry In July 1866, the Pacific Railway Act was amended, authorizing the Central Pacific (CP) to build east until it met the line being constructed by the Union Pacific (UP). The amount of land and money each railroad would be granted was proportional to the number of miles of track laid, causing the two railroads to start building in earnest. Their rivalry was notably unfriendly. In February 1869, crews for the UP and CP were grading parallel routes on the Promontory Range. At that time, the UP's primarily Irish crews began bullying the CP's primarily Chinese crews, first throwing clods of earth and escalating to a series of raids in which the UP crews attempted to dislodge the CP by attacking while wielding pick handles. Eventually, the UP crews began setting off heavy charges without warning, seriously injuring several CP workers; when the CP crews began grading at a higher elevation, they retaliated by setting off a surprise explosion, which buried several UP workers alive.

Tracklaying Building the railroad started with surveying the route and grading the roadbed; for the CP, grading was delayed by the route chosen through the rugged Sierra mountain range. During the first five years of construction, the CP spent only 95 weeks laying tracks, while the remainder had been consumed in grading. In the CP's traditional approach to tracklaying, once the grading was complete, a loaded tracklaying car was sent to the end of the line, carrying a single crew and eight pairs of rails along with a commensurate number of ties, spikes, and splices. One pair of rails was unloaded at a time and the tracklaying car only advanced once the crew had completed that pair of rails. When the line curved, the rails were pre-bent (and the inside rail was shortened) before they were loaded onto the tracklaying car. The slow pace of the tracklaying car and limited manpower that could be brought to bear limited the CP to laying just 132 miles (212 km) of track during the first five years of construction from 1863 to 1868, building east from Sacramento, despite adopting speedier techniques for curved rails and splices in 1866. Meanwhile, the UP had built 515 miles (829 km) from Omaha, Nebraska, west to Cheyenne, Wyoming, by 1868. In 1867, General Jack Casement of the UP described their current pace of laying 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) of track per day as "a little slow at first, to get the new hands broke into their places" and confidently predicted they would double the rate to 5 miles (8.0 km) per day by the end of the summer. UP crews under Casement and his brother Daniel would lay 4 to 5 miles (6.4 to 8.0 km) of track in a single day in August 1867, prompting CP Vice President Collis P. Huntington to ask if they should send a spy to watch the UP at work.

In March 1868, a former UP tracklayer joined the CP, happy to share the UP's technique to speed up tracklaying. Rather than have a single crew take on all aspects of tracklaying work, the crews of the Casement brothers were organized more like an assembly line: crews were specialized, employing more men in total, but having each man be responsible for a limited set of tasks such as rail handling, spiking, splicing, etc. In addition, the tracklaying car was advanced over the loose rails, before they were completely spiked in place, allowing work to take place simultaneously along a longer distance of track. One contemporary newspaper account described the UP process in military terms, with workers divided into armies of suppliers, graders, tie setters, and track-layers. Tracklaying in this fashion was limited mainly by supplies and supply lines, typically to 3 miles (4.8 km) per day. The rapid pace of the work was thought to be affecting its quality, but the tracks laid in this manner had no issues in passing mandatory government inspections, which were required to release funds to the UP.

Record-setting pace On August 17, 1868, UP crews laid 4+1⁄2 miles (7.2 km) of track in a single day; their bragging aroused a competitive instinct in CP chief Charles Crocker, who instructed his construction superintendent James Harvey Strobridge to beat it. CP crews responded by laying a few feet beyond 6 miles (9.7 km) on August 19. UP's riposte was to lay 8 miles (13 km) of track in a single day on October 26, working from 3 a.m. until midnight. The disparity in pace continued into 1869; on February 18, Oliver Ames Jr., president of UP, testified before the Congressional Pacific Railroad Committee, pointing out that while the CP was 200 miles (320 km) from the prearranged meeting spot in Ogden, Utah, the UP was only 30 miles (48 km) away, and should be entitled to continue building west past Ogden. CP's Huntington, also testifying that day, retorted UP's pace was purchased at the cost of quality. On March 12, 1869 Mark Hopkins sent the coded message "Roving Delia Fish Dance" to Huntington, letting him know his crews were laying 4 miles (6.4 km) of track per day regularly. This proved the production gains of adopting Casement's techniques and set the stage for the Ten Mile Day of April 28, 1869.

Ten Miles of Track, Laid in One Day

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.