Iron Horses to Promontory Railroad: Central Pacific-Union Pacific

Iron Horses to Promontory Railroad: Central Pacific-Union Pacific by Best, Gerald M.. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780870950018.

With more than 310 illustrations: Maps - Timetables - Documentary Reproductions. Rosters of Motive Power, and Scale Locomotive Drawings. Few events in American history have captured the nations imagination as did the building of the first transcontinental railroad and its completion with the driving of a golden spike into a laurel tie at Promontory Utah, May 10, 1869. Many historians have written of the obstacles overcome in building across the Sierra and the Rockies, of political turmoil, Indian raids, financial problems; of material brought around the Horn for the Central Pacific and up the -Missouri for the Union Pacific; of personalities involved in this work of giants. Iron Horses to Promontory tells a different story. In picture and text it tells of the locomotives - those beautiful iron horses with brass fittings, filigree work and brightly painted colors-each with its own name on the Central Pacific and its characteristic smoke stack, domes, and number plates. The rolling stock is described; the locomotive builders too long neglected, are presented and the writer brings to the reader interested in the Pioneer West, many "happenings" along the line which have hitherto not been published. This book includes many rare and unpublished photographs of construction times, locomotives, and scenes along the route by such acknowledged cameramen of the time as Andrew J. Russell, S. ). Sedgwick, Charles 11. Savage, and Alfred A. Hart. There are maps, timetables and documentary reproductions, a complete roster of motive power of the Central Pacific to 1891 mid the Union Pacific to 1885, scale model drawings of Central Pacific No. 60 Jupiter and Union Pacific No. 119, and a detailed bibliography and index.