Stairway to Promontory

The cut below on the Union Pacific grade exemplifies the stair step construction method used by the railroads, with workers grading, scraping, and blasting on several different levels of a cut at once to increase efficiency and speed in building the railroad. Excavation on this cut most likely ended about April 9, 1869, when the decision was made that the railroads should meet at Promontory, halting the great railroad race that had previously produced 250 miles of parallel grading in northern Utah.

Howell, Utah · United States