railroad tycoon li linda stanford hammered in a gold spike to link the central specific -- pacific railroad from the west and the road road from the east. the transcontinental railroad was complete. we go to utah to learn more. david: so we are from the summit walking you over to where the transcontinental railroad was completed. this spot, marked by the thai -- of whereithin inches the original ceremony was held in 1869. included on this tie is a plaque that lists many of the dignitaries from that company, including leland stanford's name. and the big four are all marked there.

another thing you can see here at the site is connection to the resources that would have been available to the two companies building the railroad. we mocked up everything to try to make it as authentic as possible. if you look on the west side, you will see some precut ties. they had plenty of wood in the sierra nevada's, they had sawmills and they cut all of their ties and brought them down from the mountains. whereas the union pacific coming from the east, they had to hand where they could find wood. not a lot available and you can see them mocked. here how they would just cut them and bring them out when they could. the transcontinental railroad was happening at the end of the big taurean age -- victorian age as you go into the industrial age. was a perfect time for the united states, because when the transcontinental railroad was completed, it made a major impact in the industrial development of the nation.

the complete construction took over about six and a half years, so from 1862-1869. the time period just before they started building the transcontinental railroad would have been when a lot of people were coming out after the gold rush. the silver rush was taking off. we were also in the middle of the civil war when the act was signed to start this project. abraham lincoln wanted to have access to all of the materials that were available in the sierra nevadas, including the gold and the silver. and connect the new states to the united states, so he chose that time to complete the act and finish or start building the transcontinental railroad. obviously, in the middle of the war the defense of the country , was a major factor making the decision. they wanted to be able to get troops across the country in a quicker amount of time. they wanted to cut the time of shipping goods, the raw goods goods that would be made back

east and the finished goods that would go to the new states out to west. four to six months around the horn flipping around south america was hopefully going to be cut to two weeks and that was abraham lincoln's goal, to get troops across the country in two weeks. it ended up being seven to 10 days they could get things across the country once it was completed. the two companies that were building the railroad where the pacific railroad company that started in sacramento, california and the union railroad that started in the east. one of the problems was the company's -- companies were building before they got paid. they were always in debt. they were worrying about money. the other problem was resources. a huge problem with resources. if you ever travel across utah and nebraska, there was not a

lot of wood. you also have to build buildings for water towers or just for the infrastructure for building the railroad across the country. another problem because they , were in the civil war, it was finding manpower to build the railroad. and the end of the civil war, foras actually a huge help the railroad companies because you had all these veterans from the war looking for a way to provide for their lives and their livelihood and there was a ready employer in the railroad companies. now, for the central pacific, this was even a bigger concern because it a lot of times especially early on in building , the railroad a lot of their , workers would come on long enough to obtain money to go and mine in the gold or the silver fields or mines. so that is actually why the chinese were eventually brought on as an experiment.

they brought on about 50 chinese workers initially to test them out. there was a lot of doubt because of the stature. they did not think they would be in book to withstand the 10-12-hour days seven days a week. there was a lot of criticism, i guess you could say racism against the chinese, but eventually they overcame those doubts and they did a fantastic job. so well in fact that they employed about 1,200 chinese. both companies were being paid land grants and government bonds to build and they did not want to give up ground to each other. so instead of coming together where they would meet, they continued to build past one another until the federal government stepped in and said we're not going pay you anymore until you find out where you're going to meet. so that is when they collected the spot where we are standing,

and it gave both the companies 30-miles of track they had to finish in the last month. so you are looking down over some of the wetlands on the great salt lake. influencers one was , finding fresh water every 30-miles to refill the tank that would supply the water for the boilers on the steam locomotives. another thing they needed to , stay under the 2% grade, which is only 100 feet elevation change every mile. as they were trying to find their way through utah, there was the large salt water lake. wouldn't allow freshwater, but they had to find a path around it. they were thinking about going through the wetland area, but one of the engineers brought up if the lake level rises and they , decided to come up on the foothills north of the lake.

even though that presented more challenges with the grading but they could stay away from the lake and prevent flooding and damaging of the actual railroad. another thing you can see from this site, if you look down just below us, you can see the other grade. so i mentioned earlier that the two companies building across the country passed each other through utah with grade work, because they do not want to give up the money the federal government was providing. down below us, that was the union pacific a grade, which was abandoned less than a year after the completion of the railroad. because the central pacific had worked through utah longer, they had a higher quality grade, so when they bought the rights they switched to their grade and that standing, we are standing on the original central pacific grade. we're coming up to the last cut made by the union pacific in their approach to promontory,

the summit valley that is right here. in just a minute we will be able to look down and you can actually see, in order to get through the different elevation changes, they would cut through the rock and blast with black powder making the channels they , could actually build the railroad through. the burns or hills up on the far side of this cut is from the 1860's. this is actually rock that was stacked up and you can see they kind of put some bigger rocks to act as a wall, retaining wall, to keep that from collapsing into the cut. it is pretty neat, you can see work that has lasted 150 years now. [dinging bell] [sound of train]

david: as they approached the ceremony ended they figured out the spot here at the summit, a lot of people were interested in knowing when they would complete fromnd they had reporters all over the country that came out with the dignitaries. and individuals came out from other companies that would connect to the main line and benefit with their businesses from that. the day that was set for the completion when the federal government made these companies set when they would finish and where was may 8. and we hold our anniversary every year i made 10, that is because there was a delay in the union pacific getting out here. they were not able to hold the ceremony until that day. when they actually held the ceremony, one of the neat parts of the story, they did have the ceremonial spikes, which gives us our name golden spike.

but they actually had four ceremonial spikes, including two solid gold, a solid silver, and then the arizona spike, which was iron, silver and gold. because they were precious metal, they could not drive the spikes. they had to predrill the holes and place those metals in. we don't know where they placed them. they placed them in and tapped them in as part of the ceremony. they tapped them as part of the ceremony, but then removed all of that and there was a last spike that was driven. so when you hear the driving of the last spike, it wasn't the gold strike, it was the spike that was tied to the telegraph. they tied at the telegraph wires around the spike, so when they drove it in it sent a broadcast with live coverage around the country and that started the celebrations all throughout the

nation. one of the famous pictures you see is the champagne photo. locomotives here and we actually have replicas of those that operate during the summer season. the jupiter and the number 119. those locomotives have become two of the most famous in american railroading. so being able to run those and let people see 1860's replica steam locomotives on a daily basis is a cool way to commemorate that. after the ceremony, a lot of pictures were taken, then operation of the railroad became huge throughout the country. because they were trying to increase time and efficiency within these companies themselves, eventually the line passing through this area was bypassed and they built a and causewaye across the great salt lake from the nevada/utah border trait

-- straight across the point of the promontory mountains that are behind us straight into ogden. that cut 80 miles extra travel time, money, all of that off of the operation of the transcontinental line. ogden became a huge hub for transporting troops and materials and supplies all across the country. they would have trains every hour coming and unloading huge amounts of supplies or people and it became a major city for moving across the country. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. astronaut former nasa michael collins was part of the apollo 11 crew that landed the first man on the moon. next on american history tv, journalist marvin kalb talks with mr. collins about his experiences in