American Experience: Scouting the Route
Western Nevada desert
When the Central Pacific needed to build fast and cheap they didn't bother to fill, but just tossed up these trestles and never bothered to shore them up later. Along the grade, there is evidence of dozens of little dugouts -- maybe three feet deep and five feet in diameter -- where the Chinese workers took some measure of shelter from the winds. To this day the ground yields artifacts the Chinese workers left behind more than a century before.
Go West Go East

In the Sierra Nevada, California Donner Lake, California Western Nevada desert Western Nevada desert Eastern Nevada desert Eastern Nevada desert near the Great Salt Lake, Utah Promontory Summit, Utah Ogden, Utah Echo, Utah Piedmont, Wyoming Piedmont, Wyoming near Green River, Wyoming near Green River, Wyoming Point of Rocks, Wyoming Sherman, Wyoming Dale Creek, Wyoming Dix, Nebraska Julesburg, Colorado Roscoe, Nebraska North Platte, Nebraska Brady, Nebraska Shelton, Nebraska Omaha, Nebraska