Comments on: Where the Transcontinental Railroad finally joined

At Promontory Summit, Utah, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad met on May 10, 1869 after 1,776 miles of track had been laid over six years.

[Random_Walk]

Ah - it's a pity you missed one real beautiful part of the trip... you passed up Antelope Island. While you'd think it was dead and empty (it sits in the middle of the Great Salt Lake) it is actually pretty cool, and very alive. Bison wander about the place unfenced, there's trees and plants everywhere, and the best sunsets on the planet can be seen from it.

[ryankask]

Great post! Before the fiberoptic networks we had the rail networks and canal networks and its nice to see old fashioned tech on CNET!

[ryankask]

The article made me wonder about some other stuff...

* First, the Utah state coin celebrates this occasion -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2007_UT_Proof_Rev.png
* The route was quickly abandoned when new routes were surveyed that cut mileage -- the Wikipedia article has a bunch of information and links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spike

[jture]

Howling typo:
"America's first railroads operating in the 1930s"
Uhhh ... you're off by about 100 years ...

[natalieweinstein]

Thanks for catching that howling typo. Just fixed it.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Point of fact- the UP railroad doesn't run at the celebratory Promontory Point and never has it's actually several miles away, but this tourist setup was created off the mainline for an attraction purpose.

it's still neat to see 4-4-0 American type locomotives in semi-operation.

[assman]

It just happened to be 1,776 miles long.. wow.