1866-1867: Perseverance Alone

January 1866
The CP begins the year with 54 miles of working track, from Sacramento to Colfax, California.

Spring 1866
Over 10,000 men, the largest workforce in America, work for the Central Pacific.

Winter 1866
Chemist James Howden begins manufacturing nitroglycerin on site in the Sierras.

June 25, 1867
Chinese workers strike, but are forced back to work within a week.

August 28, 1867
Workers blast through the rock of the Summit Tunnel.

The Blue Goose

"Snow prevents work about 5-6 months in the year, so we need to get it done this season if possible... We're pushing hard."
-- railroad executive Mark Hopkins

A mule skinner named Missouri Bill famously transported a twelve-ton locomotive engine up into the Sierras. He used ten yokes of oxen and a special wagon with two-foot-wide wheels. The steam engine, called the Blue Goose, was used to hoist cut granite away from the Summit Tunnel and deliver timber for shoring up the tunnel walls. It sped progress for the teams of Chinese workers doing grueling work: sledgehammering a drill into granite, filling the carved hole with black powder and a fuse, and running desperately out of the way of exploding rock.

Snowed In

"At our camp the snow was so deep we had to shovel it from the roof and make steps to get to the top. We were snowed in, and our provisions got down to corn meal and tea. Had it lasted one week longer we would have been compelled to eat horse meat..."
-- surveyor J. O. Wilder

Snow damaged rails and trestles, and blocked passage for supplies and workers. Gangs of workers were employed just shoveling snow out of the way. Avalanches suddenly engulfed and killed workers. To create a safe passage for trains, workers built snowsheds to cover the most vulnerable parts of the track. One snowshed, called "The House Without End," was twenty-nine miles long.

In 1870, Van Norstrand's Engineering Magazine described the Central Pacific's work. "They took the giant branches of the pines and braced them against the mountain side, framing them and interlacing them with beam. They sloped the roof sustained by massive timbers and stayed by braces laid into the rock, covered by heavy planks up against the precipice so that descending earth or snow would be shot clean over the safely housed track into the pine tops below. They have conquered the snow."

Nitroglycerin

"[They] blow the greater part of the rock clear over the cliff and out of the way. It is a sight to see these heavy seam blasts go off. It makes the earth shake like an earthquake."
-- railroad executive Edwin Crocker

Faced with slow tunneling progress, the Central Pacific turned to a controversial and deadly substance: nitroglycerin. Invented in Italy in 1847 and refined in the 1860s by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, it was more potent than black powder -- and much more volatile. To eliminate the dangers of transporting it, British chemist James Howden was brought into the Sierras to concoct the explosive substance on site.

Chinese Workers' Strike

"If there had been that number of whites in a strike, there would have been murder, drunkenness and disorder... But with the Chinese, it was just like Sunday.... No violence was perpetrated along the whole line."
-- railroad executive Charles Crocker

Despite their productivity, Chinese workers were treated poorly and paid less than other workers. They often handled the more dangerous tasks of carving through granite, first with blasting powder and later with nitroglycerin. Their reputation as laborers spread and soon they were being hired away from the railroad. The Central Pacific raised their monthly wage to $35, but thousands of Chinese workers went on strike, demanding $40. The Central Pacific cut off food and supplies, then sent an intimidating posse up to the Chinese camps. The immigrant workers backed down, accepted the $35 wage, and resumed work.

The Summit Tunnel

"The rugged mountains looked like stupendous ant-hills."
-- New York Tribune reporter Albert D. Richardson

Progress through the Sierras was measured in feet, not miles. The most difficult tunnel was Number 6, the Summit Tunnel -- a 1,659-foot-long passage through some of the hardest rock in the country. Workers excavated it in a punishing year of round-the-clock shifts. When the tunnel was completed, its builders discovered that the surveyed starting points on either side were only off by two inches -- an astounding feat of engineering.