The Locomotives of Golden Spike - Jupiter

Built in 1868 by Schenectady Locomotive Works in New York for the Central Pacific Railroad, the Jupiter was an eight-wheel, 4-4-0 American-type locomotive, a form introduced in 1836 that became standard by the 1840s and remained prominent into the 1880s. The Jupiter hauled Central Pacific President Leland Stanford’s special train to Promontory Summit for the joining of the rails, then remained in service until the turn of the 20th century, when it was scrapped for the standard fee of $1,000. In the mid-1970s, O’Connor Engineering Laboratories of Costa Mesa, California, undertook the construction of working replicas of the original Jupiter and No. 119, and in 1979, after four years of work and with every dimension within 1/4 inch of the original, the Jupiter and No. 119 returned to Promontory. Today these locomotives stand as a tangible legacy of the first transcontinental railroad that tied the nation together economically and geographically.

Thatcher, Utah · United States