Images of Golden Spike National Historical Park – Northern Utah, taken in June 2021.

Golden Spike National Historical Park pays tribute to the efforts of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, and the scores of men working on the ground, to connect the eastern and western regions of the United States by joining them via the transcontinental railroad. On May 10, 1869 an engine from each company met at Promontory Summit in northern Utah to celebrate the laying of the last rails and dignitaries drove a Golden Spike into a tie to symbolize the completion of the act linking the east and the west coasts by rail.

In the morning I had attended the park ranger program highlighted by the arrival of the engines at the Last Spike Site; an impressive display of the two replica engines pulling up nose-to-nose just as they did over 152 years ago. However, rather than sticking around to see the engines retreat back to their stations I decided to take the park auto-tour and explore the old rail roadbeds, cuts and fills, built to get the trains to that momentous celebration. It was an enlightening and educational trip back in time and while I walked through the Union Pacific Railroad’s Last Cut to reach Promontory Summit, I could hear in the distance the train whistles blowing. Of course, I knew it was the sound of the daily retreat program taking place but it wasn’t hard to imagine being a worker toiling to clear the railbed so the No. 119 engine of the Union Pacific Railroad could meet up with the Jupiter Engine from the Central Pacific Railroad thus completing one of the most important engineering feats of the nineteenth century.