"The Central Pacific's 'Jupiter' had a large funnel smoke stack, while the Union Pacific's 'No 119' used a standard straight stack.  Why?  The funnel stack was used in wood-burning locomotives passing through heavily wooded areas.  The funnel shape and a wire screen at the top prevented sparks from igniting fires along the railbed." 
"The Union Pacific's Irish crew laid the next to the last rail.  Then the Central Pacific Chinese crew laid the final rail and drove some spikes at one end to hold it into place.  During the laying of this last rail, one of the crowd yelled to the Photographers 'Take a shot!', but the Chinese misunderstood (knowing only one meaning for 'shot'), dropped their rail, and ran for cover :-)"
"Promontory, the town, rose out of the desert almost overnight and died almost as suddenly -- 10 years later the largely board and canvas town was deserted.  An observer said of Promontory that it was '4900 feet above sea level, though, theologically speaking, if we interpret scripture literally, it ought to have been 49,000 feet below that level; for it certainly was, for its size, morally nearest to the infernal regions of any town on the road.'"
"The settling of Promontory as the site of the meeting of the rails didn't happen until April 10th by a joint resolution of Congress.  Until that time both railroads continued right on past one another preparing track bed and more than 100 miles of duplicate grading was the result.  Often graders on the competing railroads worked within a couple of hundred feet of each other --  sometimes blasting  without warning the other side."
"The 'Irish' workers on the railroad ate beef and bread, washed down by strong coffee.  Their favorite drink -- whiskey.  250 of them started in Omaha and by the time they reached Promontory their numbers had swelled to 10,000.  1 in 4 were tracklayers.  The others were graders, blacksmiths, herdsman, teamsters, cooks, clerks, etc.  They averaged 3 dollars a day wage -- which was a very good wage at that time."
"A reporter in 1869 said that between Brigham City (36 miles from Promontory) and Promontory that there were 300 whiskey saloons.  These were all busy 'developing the resources of the territory.' :-)  He went on to write that, 'There are many heavy contractors on the Promontory, UT the heaviest firm I have heard of is named Red Jacket (whiskey).  I notice nearly every wagon that passes have a great many boxes marked with his name.' :-)"
"Right along side the track laying effort worked telegraph workers who erected poles and strung wire to allow communication along the newly laid track and back to headquarters.  On the Union Pacific side these telegraph poles and lines were favorite targets of marauding Indians.  The Indians found the rails hard to tear-up but the telegraph lines were easy targets and the copper wire made excellent necklaces and bracelets.'"
"The towns that sprang up at the end of track as the railroads progressed were rough places.  One reporter described one of these after the sun went down: 'At night, new aspects are presented in this city of premature growth.  Watchfires gleam over the sea-like expanse of ground outside the city, while inside soldiers, herdsmen, teamsters, women, railroad men are dancing, singing, or gambling.  I verily believe that there are men here who would murder a fellow creature for five dollars.  Nay, there are men who have already done it, and who stalk abroad in daylight unwhipped of justice.'"
"The Union Pacific reached Green River, Wyoming by the winter of 1868.  Working west of Green River, the Union Pacific established a record of 7 and 3/4 miles of track in one day, a record which seemed, at the time, likely to stand forever.  It was broken that spring by the Central Pacific crew who laid more than 10 miles of track in one day."
"As the railroads penetrated east and west, civilization came with them.  Stage-coach stops were small dirt floored affairs but trains, with relatively large numbers of people on board, stopped, usually on schedule, three times a day for thirty minutes for meals, and where they stopped permanent hotels and restaurants sprang up."
"Actual work got underway on the Union Pacific on December 2, 1863.  On that cold morning, the residents of Omaha and Council Bluff gathered to hear speeches and witness the official ground-breaking ceremony.  Grading was started immediately but no rails were laid even 18 months afterward.  Why?  Money problems for the railroad, but more importantly no timber or rails, the Civil War had caused prices to rise for all materials, and venture capital was tied up in the war effort.  It was only after the Civil War ended that rails could start being laid as former Confederate and Union soldiers headed for Omaha for the high paying railroad jobs."
"Ironically, although the Civil War delayed the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, at least the war allowed the effort to actually start.  Before the Southern States seceded there were bitter rivalries as to whether a southern or a northern route would be best.  When the Civil War began, that debate became mute."
"The Winter of 1867 was particularly bad for the Union Pacific.  Rails were actually laid across the frozen Missouri river to bring supplies.  Fierce blizzards stopped the work, and the spring thaw swept away many miles of track."
"A rail weighs 560 lb. and is 30 feet long.  After the 'ironmen' hauled and laid the rails, Chinese crews loaded fishplates, nuts, and bolts into baskets attached to poles over their shoulders and ran up the line tossing out hardware every 10 feet.  Another team followed fastening the rails with the hardware.  A track-gauge team made sure that the rails were exactly 4 feet, 8 and 1/2 inches apart.  Then came the spikers.  Three blows were all that was required by a skilled spike setter to drive the spike."
"The Chinese workers organized themselves into teams of 12 to 20 men, each team with its own cook and boss.  Chinese who spoke English collected wages and bought supplies for their respective crews.  They knew how to work as a team and took fewer breaks than other workers."
"Passage to America for a Chinese worker ranged from $25 to $60 -- more than most Chinese families made in a year.  The first Chinese immigrants -- miners -- had to raise this money themselves by selling livestock or property or leaving their families deeply in debt.  Later, when the Chinese had proven their worth to the Railroad, arrangements were made to let them pay off the passage a month at a time while working in America.  To administer these contracts, special export-import firms were established called 'Golden Mountain Firms'.  Many of these firms promised workers that their remains would be returned to China should they die in America while fulfilling their contract."
"The Chinese workers were known as 'Celestials' by the Americans because in those days China was known as 'The Celestial Empire'."
"A 1790 law stated that only people of the white race could become citizens.  Thus Chinese immigrants were prevented from becoming citizens.  Chinese miners, like most other miners, went 'bust' in the gold rush and since they could not return home in disgrace and poverty without their hoped for riches, many became trapped in America.  The 'Chinese Exclusion Act' of 1882 prevented the immigration of Chinese laborers.  Only certain categories of Chinese (students, merchants, diplomats, tourists, etc.).  It became dangerous for Chinese Americans, who had established themselves in America, to visit China since entry back into the United States was uncertain."
"People were amazed at the strength, courage, and skill of the 'Celestial' workmen on the railroad.  A reporter from New York wrote of them: '... a great army laying siege to Nature in her strongest citadel.  The rugged mountains ... swarmed with Celestials, shoveling, wheeling, carting, drilling, and blasting rocks and earth.'"
"The Chinese railroad workers insisted on their own food from San Francisco -- oysters, abalone, cuttlefish, bamboo sprouts, mushrooms, noodles, rice, dried seaweed, rice crackers, and dried fruit.  They also insisted that kettles of tea be kept in their camps at all time.  They drank tea, not straight water.  Their superior diet and especially their protection by the boiling of the tea meant that they rarely fell prey to the problems and diseases of the other non-Chinese railroad workers."
"When Charlie Crocker tried to persuade his partners to hire the first Chinese railroad workers they scoffed and said the Chinese were 'too weak' to endure the hardships.  Crocker replied: '..any race that could build the Great Wall of China could build a railroad.'"
"Unlike their largely Irish counterparts, the Chinese workers on the railroad rarely drank whiskey, but they did smoke opium."
"In their push over the Sierra Nevadas, the Chinese dug 14 tunnels through the solid granite.  At best, progress was two feet a day, but on average only 8 inches or so.  To save time they worked on four faces at once.  They did this by drilling a shaft down into the middle of the mountain and lowering workers into the hole to begin working outwards while other workers worked from the ends of the tunnels inward."
"In order to keep from being cheated each Chinese worker paid about $1 a month to a trusted American or English Speaking co-worker to represent them and watch over their interests."
"After the transcontinental railroad was completed, many Chinese found work on other railroad projects.  In spite of continued harassment in the press, the railroads admired their skill and work ethic and used them on many other projects.  Central Pacific Railroad's Leland Stanford (who was later Governor of California) felt enough gratitude for them that he provided permanent employment for a number of them in his will."
"The Chinese wore a typical two piece outfit of trousers and top -- most often blue.  Supplies of Chinese clothing, food, etc. could be bought from a railroad car manned by Chinese merchants that kept up with the construction train."
"Chinese workers -did- strike.  On one occasion 2000 of them went on strike, asking for $40 per day, an eight-hour day in the tunnels, and an end to beating by foreman.  The workers didn't stay united in their efforts, however, and the strike failed."
"Stanford wrote in his report the President Andrew Johnson: 'As a class they are quiet, peaceable, patient, industrious, and economical.  Ready and apt to learn all the different kinds of work required in railroad building, they soon became as efficient as white laborers.  More prudent and economical, they are contented with less wages.  We find them organized into societies for mutual aid and assistance.  These societies can count their numbers by thousands, are conducted by shrewd, intelligent business men who promptly advise their subordinates where employment can be found.'"
"Stanford said of the Chinese: 'They learn quickly, do not fight, have no strikes that amount to anything, and are very cleanly in their habits.  They will gamble, and do quarrel among themselves most noisily -- but harmlessly.'"
"From the journal of J. O. Wilder, a flagmen for a railroad survey team: 'At times the Chinamen would strike and refuse to take their shifts in the tunnel, but Strobridge was ever on the job.  They feared him in their hearts as much as they did the Chinese devil.  He was a fine general.  He had a mild but firm way, which was in the form of a pick handle, in dealing with these fellows.  He had but one eye, yet he could spot the ring-leaders at one glance and would bring his persuader into action and was not particular where it landed, for he was a past master in this line.  Inside of five minutes, you could not find a Chinese in camp, and could hear them say 'muckahigh' as they went to their work with Strobridge acting as escort ...'"
"From the journal of John R. Gills, a civil engineer for the railroad: 'With the exception of a few white men at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinese, with white foremen -- the laborers working usually in three shifts of eight hours each, and the foremen in two shifts of twelve hours each.  A single foremen, with a gang of thirty to forty men, generally constituted the force at work at each end of the tunnel; of these twelve to fifteen worked on the heading, and the rest on bottom, removing material, etc....'"
"From the account of engineer J. M. Graham: 'A humorous incident occurred when we got east of Reno.  The Central Pacific found it desirable to increase the grading forces considerably so that they brought in several hundred Chinese direct from China and organized them into construction gangs.  The Paiute Indians got among these Chinese and told them some big stories about enormous snakes out on that desert large enough that they could swallow a Chinaman easily.  That alarmed these Chinese to the extent that four or five hundred took their belongings and struck out to return direct to Sacramento.  Crocker and Company had spent quite a little money to secure them and they sent men on horseback after them.  These men handled the Chinamen like a cowboy would cattle and herded most of them back again.  These Chinamen kind of quieted down, and after nothing happened, and they never saw any of the snakes, they forgot about them.'"
"From the Alta California Newspaper: 'Systemic workers these Chinese -- competent and wonderfully effective because tireless and unremitting in their industry ... Divided into gangs of about thirty men each, they work under the direction of an American foreman.  The Chinese board themselves.  One of their number is selected in each gang to receive all wages and buy all provisions.  They usually pay an American clerk -- $1 a month apiece is usual -- to see that each gets all he earned and is charged no more than his share of the living expenses.  They are paid from $30 to $35 a month, out of which they board themselves.  They are credited with having saved about $20 a month.  Their workday is from sunrise to sunset, six days a week.  They spend Sunday washing and mending, gambling, and smoking.'"
"Saturday, May 8, 1969, as reported by the Evening Bulletin, a San Francisco Newspaper: 'Since my last dispatch a battle has occurred between two rival companies of Chinese, several hundred in number, laborers of the 'See Yup' and 'Teng Wo' Companies.  They have been idle at Victory, eight miles from here ... The row occurred about 15 dollars due from one camp to the other.  After the usual braggadocio, both parties sailed in, at a given signal, armed with every conceivable weapon.  Spades were handled, and crowbars, spikes, picks, and infernal machines were hurled between the ranks ... Several shots were fired ... At this junction, Superintendent Strobridge, with several of his men, rushed into the melee, and, with the assistance of the leading Chinamen, who were more peaceably disposed, succeeded in separating the combatants and restoring order among the Chinese.  The casualties include the shooting, fatally, it is supposed of a Chinese... If this man dies, another encounter will certainly follow ...'"
"As Stanford made his way to Promontory, he barely escaped disaster when Chinese cutting timber above the track skidded a log down on the track below.  They had seen the regular train pass and did not know that Stanford's 'Special' was on the way.  As Stanford's train rounded a curve, there was the log, and the engineer had no time to stop the train.  The engine struck the log and was badly damaged.  A passenger riding the cow catcher was also gravely injured."
"Superintendent Dodge spoke for the Union Pacific Railroad in Durrant's place (who had retired to his car because of a headache): 'Gentlemen, the great Benton proposed that some day a giant statue of Columbus be erected on the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains, pointing westward, denoting that as the great route across the continent.  You have made that prophecy today a fact.  This is the way to India.'"
"With the work almost finished the Alta California Newspaper reported: 'Standing here ... Along the line of the road may be seen the white camps of the Chinese laborers, and from every one of them squads of these people are advancing ... The work of today leaves but four miles to be laid on the Central Pacific.  These four miles are almost graded.  The Union Pacific has ten miles of road to grade.  The cutting in some places is very difficult, but the expectation is that the work will be completed on the 10th of May.'"
"Another report from the Alta California Newspaper: 'The loose population that has followed up the track-layers of the Union Pacific is turbulent and rascally.  Several shooting scrapes have occurred among them lately.  Last night a whiskey-seller and a gambler had a fracas, in which the 'sport' shot the whiskey dealer, and the friends of the latter shot the gambler.  Nobody knows what will become of these riffraff when the tracks meet, but they are lively enough now and carry off their share of the plunder from the working men.'"
"A report from the Daily Reporter Newspaper: '... a few days ago four men were preparing a blast by filling a large crevice in a ledge with powder.  After pouring in the powder they undertook to work it down with iron bars, the bars striking the rock caused an explosion; one of the men was blown two or three hundred feet in the air, breaking every bone in his body, the other three were terribly burnt and wounded with flying stones.  Fun is fun, but standing astraddle of four or five kegs of powder and working it into the rocks with a crow-bar is a particular kind of sport that most men wouldn't relish.'"
"Most of the Chinese that worked on the railroad came from Cantonese villages in and around Hong Kong and the colony of Macao.  They spoke Cantonese or the Szeyup dialect."
"The Chinese loved to gamble and Mark Twain noted 'about every third Chinaman runs a lottery'.  Their favorite gambling game would have been Fan Tan but limits on losses were set by head workers and strictly adhered to.  Consequently, bitterness, fights, and bankruptcy were unknown.  They did smoke opium, 'one or two pipes on Saturday night', but  'You do not see them intoxicated with it'.  Strobridge and Crocker also allowed the Chinese 'odd' Buddhist shrines along the right-of-way although what these may have looked like is uncertain now."
"Indians were a constant problem for the Union Pacific.  The surveyors, much advanced from the rail laying activity slept with 'loaded carbines by their sides, and loaded revolvers by their heads' in spite of being accompanied by soldiers -- as many as 30.  Attack by Indians was a likely possibility at all times.  'Every tribe , from the headwaters of the Missouri to Texas, appeared in the Spring and Summer of 1865 to have commenced merciless depredations against the white man.'   Luckily, the first 150 miles of the Union Pacific railroad was through Pawnee country who were relatively friendly to the white man. In fact the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians were ancestral enemies of the Pawnee and the railroad soon hired the Pawnee to protect them against these hostile tribes."
"The Union Pacific realized early-on that plans to go through Denver would have to be scrapped -- the best they could do is come to within 100 miles  -- because of the grades, mountains, etc, and instead traverse Wyoming.  There was deep regret at this but no other decision was possible.  The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific knew in 1865 that the railroad could not pass through Salt Lake City, rather it must pass through Ogden and around the north side of the Great Salt Lake, but no one dared tell Brigham Young of this yet."
"When the message 'Done' came over the wires, the crowd before the telegraph office in Washington D.C. began to shout.  In San Francisco bells rang out and a 220 gun salute was given at Fort Point.  Cannon, guns, and bells rang out over the din of the thousands of celebrators in Sacramento who had been brought in on free trains.  In New York another 100 gun salute ensued.  The Liberty Bell rang out in Philadelphia, crowds in the streets of Buffalo sang the Star Spangled Banner; parades commenced in Chicago. In Salt Lake City, the Mormon Tabernacle was filled to overflowing, and in Ogden guns rang out for 15 minutes."
"A report from the Daily Reporter: 'Corinne, March 23.  The weather has cleared up beautifully and the equinoctial mud is drying fast.  A raft containing 1,700 feet of piling and about 500 telegraph poles came down the river yesterday and tied up opposite the town-site, the first one and therefore worthy of note.  It is the beginning of what may be a flourishing business in a few months or a year or two.  Mr. Eicholtz for the U.P. company has five pile drivers at work on the crossing of the river, and will be done driving piles by today or tomorrow.  One may walk across the Bear River on the finished railroad bridge within a week....The C.P. have all their piling and bridge timber on the ground and yesterday set a steam pile driver fifty feet high.  Their track is at Grouse Creek and coming on at the rate of three or four miles a day.'"
"From Stanford's account: 'Today I had a talk with Brigham Young.  He will do our grading west from Ogden to the Promontory and will not make our work secondary to the U.P.  That he will put plenty of men on both lines.  I am satisfied that he can do it.  I think this is our policy.  We can't stop the U.P. from grading their line, but we can through Young have our own grading and have it to ourselves to lay track on when we can reach it.'"
"'Snowslides and avalanches were frequent.  The storm winds being always from the southwest, form drifts or snow-wreaths on the northeast crests of the hills.  Then these become too heavy,...they break off, and in falling start the loose snow below....on top of the hill, in front of the camp, was a snow-wreath forty or fifty feet long, projecting twenty feet, and of about the same thickness.  We were uncertain when it would come down and where it would stop.  A keg of powder was put down behind it next morning and fired.  A white column shot up a hundred feet, and then the whole hillside below was in motion; it came down a frozen cascade, covered with glittering snow-dust for spray.  It was a rare sight, for snowslides are so rapid and noiseless that comparatively few are seen.  They were so frequent across the trail leading to tunnel No. 9 that it had to be abandoned for some months.  At tunnel 10 some fifteen or twenty Chinese were killed by a slide about this time.'"
"The push through the Nevada desert east of Reno had it's blessings -- the flat desert terrain needed little grading and no tunneling.  But the temperature would reach 120 degrees at times and Chinese workers were collapsing on the line from heat exhaustion and dehydration.  Crocker authorized an immediate 'hot season pay raise' for all workers, adjusted the working hours to take more advantage of the cooler early mornings and later evenings, and allowed the workers to devise their own system and cadence.  It seemed to work.  The C.P. also abandoned their doomed effort of drilling wells into the alkali desert (there was water, but not fit to drink) and instead drilled into mountain sides to the east.  Water wagons would travel from these wells to the rail bed and back constantly to fill water barrels for the men and water tanks for the trains.  It was expensive, but it worked."
"Not surprisingly, after the railroads met at Promontory, lots of work was left to be done to bring the hastily completed rails up to standards.  Government inspectors prowled the lines.  In some instances parts of the lines had to be relocated.  Some curves and grades were unacceptably sharp and steep, and ballasting of the track needed to be done.  Engine houses, which were required in some locations, had been missed.  But all in all, these 'corrections required much less than 10% of the total costs so far."
"Theodore Judah, was one of the earliest and staunchest proponents of 'the railroad'.  He wrote in 1857:  'And be it remembered that it is not the through lines to California alone upon which the road is to rely for through travel.  There is Utah, Oregon, Washington, the Russian possessions, the Sandwich Islands, China, and the Far East Indies -- all of which are brought, more or less within the influence of this road.'" 
"From an historical marker at Corinne:  ... Corrine town site was laid out in the spring of 1850.  Railroad financiers, real estate promoters, businessmen, and gambling sharks launched a boon to make Corrine the shipping, trading, and amusement center of the Rocky Mountains ... the Union Pacific designated Corinne as the freight junction for the rich mines of Montana and the communities of Idaho and Northern Utah.  The decision was made after the engineers declared that the town lay in the center of the Rocky Mountain area and that the Bear River was navigable by steamboat, making it possible for freight to be transported from Corinne via Bear River, the Great Salt Lake, and the Jordan River to Salt Lake City.  For a time the town flourished to the fullest expectations of its promoters, supporting a newspaper, many businesses, and more than 100 saloons and gambling houses.  In its time, Corinne was one of Utah’s busiest cities -- many times 500 freight wagons were congregated here."