Rail Travel in the Years that Followed
Following the completion of the transcontinental railroad, passenger train service began five days later from Omaha to Sacramento, with the trip costing $40-111 (immigrant class/first class) and scheduled to take four days. In 1876, in celebration of the nation's centennial, a train called the Transcontinental Express traveled from New York to San Francisco in a record breaking time of 83 hours and 39 minutes. In 1881, a second transcontinental railroad was completed, linking the Southern Pacific Railroad with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad at Deming in the New Mexico Territory. By 1893, the Great Northern Railway marked the completion of the fifth transcontinental line, basically following the original surveys commissioned in 1853 by the government.
Visiting the Site
The Golden Spike National Historic Site is located 32 miles west of Brigham City (about an hour's drive northwest of Ogden, UT). The 2,735-acre park offers ranger programs, films, museum exhibits, an auto tour, and summer steam locomotive demonstrations. Working replicas of the 1869 steam locomotives 'Jupiter' and '119' are in operation from May-October and the visitor center is open year-round. For more information contact: Golden Spike National Historic Site, P.O. Box 897, Brigham City 84302; phone: 435-471-2209.
As you travel west from Golden Spike National Historic Site, you can see the Transcontinental Railroad Back Country Byway, which follows the last 90 miles of grade laid by the Central Pacific and interprets more than 30 sites along the grade. It is administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
