Until the Last Spike

by William Durbin

The weather is turning colder every day. Though it was ugly working in the Dale Creek Gorge last winter, at least it was sheltered. Here, the wind hits you from all sides.

  We’ve been back in the bunk car for a week now, and the fellow who sleeps across from us has been coughing all night and keeping everyone awake.

  They’ve shipped in a newfangled steam shovel to work in the rougher cuts. When that machine is digging, you can feel the earth shake a hundred yards away. The chains and pulleys make a terrible racket, but it’s amazing how much dirt it can move. The bucket is bigger than three good-sized men. Yesterday, a half-dozen fellows posed for a picture, standing out on the boom of that steam shovel. I kept thinking, what if those gears slip? But they just set their hands on their hips and stared straight at the camera, looking as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  If the U.P. gets many more fancy machines, they won’t need any more pick-and-shovel men. Pa says they’ve ordered a steam-driven pile driver, too. Maybe they’ll even build a machine to pound spikes some day.

  December 5

  Everyone is hoping for an open winter, but it is already snowing hard enough to hold up the trains. The mail is so slow that it takes us two or three weeks to get a letter from Chicago.

  December 10

  Wasatch Town, Utah (mile 966)

  The ground is frozen so hard that we have to set off powder charges to move every shovelful of dirt. We should have quit for the winter long ago, but rumors say that the C.P. is still racing right along, and we have to keep up.

  Whether we are loading rails on the carts or dropping them in place for the spikers, we have to be careful of our footing. It would be easy to tip a load of iron over on a man in this weather. It’s worse, too, because the animals get skittish in the snow.

  Sometimes my fingers get so stiff and cold from hanging on to the rail tongs that I can’t even straighten them out when quitting time comes. The boys I really feel sorry for, though, are the ones who ride as scouts and couriers. I watched an army scout come into the Wasatch Depot this evening who was frosted up so bad that he looked like he was frozen right to his saddle. His horse didn’t seem very happy, either.

  December 16

  The trains are finally running again, but with the kind of weather we’ve been having, who knows how long the line will stay open?

  That fancy new steam shovel has frozen up. I can’t say I’m surprised.

  December 24

  Pa was going to take me to the Wasatch Hotel for Christmas Eve dinner today, but it was so cold in the lobby that we could see our breath. The manager tried to convince us to stay, but we went down the street to a little dining hall instead. Though the only thing on the menu was steak and potatoes, at least it was warm inside. They claimed the meat was beefsteak, but it was so stringy and gamy tasting that Pa figured it was bull elk. Even if our food took some extra chewing, I enjoyed getting away from the stink of that work train. No one has taken a bath since the weather turned cold.

  December 25

  Christmas on the Wasatch Range. It’s hard being so far from home on a holiday. Pa did his best to try to make it seem like a real Christmas, but it isn’t the same without the rest of the family. Though John and I scrapped sometimes, I miss him and my aunt and uncle more and more lately.

  For a present, Pa got me some copies of a magazine called Student and Schoolmate. It’s got adventure stories in it about a character named Ragged Dick. They’re easy reading, and the author has a funny name — Oliver Optic. I wonder if that is his real name. When I first started on the railroad, the fellows were passing around a story called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” by Mr. Mark Twain. I thought that was his real name until I read in the paper that he is actually Samuel Clemens.

  I gave Pa a fine ivory-handled clasp knife that I bought in C. S. Watson’s store. I know that I paid too much, but it’s hard to find nice things out here. I also sent a knife home to John. I sure hope he doesn’t cut himself, as I would hear about that from Aunt Katie.

  The weather has been gray and gloomy through most of December. Sometimes a fog settles in over the mountains and doesn’t lift for a week. Snow has piled up as high as the windows of the trains, and traffic has slowed to a crawl. They say that a train over in Evans Pass is completely stalled, and that the tracks are blocked all the way back to the Red Desert and Rawlins.

  Pa says that the C.P. played it a lot smarter in the mountains. They built miles and miles of snowsheds over their tracks in the high passes, giving them smooth sailing compared to us.

  December 26

  There was an accident in Echo Canyon today. The construction train was creeping down the grade like it has to when the rails are slick. Pa and I were riding on the flatcar at the end of the train when someone shouted, “Runaway!”

  I looked up the hill and saw four loaded flatcars hurtling toward us. It’s funny when cars uncouple on flat stretches. A little slack in the linkage is all it takes, and the coupling pin can fall out. Then the fellows have a good chuckle as the engine chugs, leaving half of the train behind.

  But cars getting away on a steep grade are serious business. The fellow who’d lost the cars at the top whistled, and our engineer thought fast. He opened up his throttle and lay on his whistle to clear the tracks. Though we picked up speed, I could see the cars were closing fast. Pa and I both got up to jump clear, but the trestle at the bottom of the canyon was getting so close that he shook his head and pulled me back down.

  All we could do was hunker down tight and watch those tons of iron flying toward us. We hit that trestle full steam ahead, and the engineer kept blasting his whistle all the way across. The sound just about split my eardrums as it echoed up and down the rock cut and mixed in with the clatter of the wheels and the creaking of the bridge timbers.

  When we hit the flat on the far side of the bridge, the cars were closing so fast that it looked like we were goners. Then I noticed the loose ties on the end of our flatcar and yelled, “We can derail her.”

  Pa must’ve thought I was talking about derailing our own train, but then he realized that I meant we might be able to knock the oncoming cars off the track. We each slid a tie off the back of our flatcar. As the ties hit between the rails, they flipped over once and then rolled sideways. For a minute, I thought the flatcar was just going to knock the ties out of the way, but the left wheel suddenly hopped up in the air like we’d hoped.

  What we didn’t expect was the sudden increase in speed. That airborne car shot straight toward us. I grabbed for Pa’s arm, wondering if it was too late to jump. But as suddenly as the flatcar rose, it fell. With a terrible grinding sound, the wheel crashed down between the rails. The rear cars jackknifed and tipped on their sides, skidding to a halt in a mess of wood and iron.

  You’d think they would have congratulated me and Pa on saving the work train and given us a day off with pay. Instead, we had to shovel and pry through that wreckage until way past supper time, clearing the line for traffic.

  December 28

  Echo Summit, Utah (mile 969)

  As another Christmas present, Pa has promoted me to the spiking crew. He said that Mr. Casement heard about my fast thinking on the back of the flatcar and told him that he should’ve made me a spiker long ago.

  The fellows are always skeptical about trying to fit in a new man, but they were open-minded enough to give me a chance. Though it usually takes me four or five hits to get a spike down, I’m proud to say that I haven’t broken a single maul yet.

  One thing I don’t have to worry about is Mac O’Grady’s teasing. Ever since Pa put him in his place, he’s been especially polite around Peter McKinney and me.

  As bitter cold and snowy as it is, we still haven’t quit laying track. The second big tunnel project is under way near the summit, and it’s going slow. The rock is a whole lot tougher here than it was back at St. Mary’s. Bill Flanagan says th
ey are trying out a blasting oil called “nitroglycerin.”

  December 29

  Castle Rock, Utah (mile 975)

  There is a curious rock formation above the river called Castle Rock. The name fits perfectly, because it must be three hundred feet high and has squarish sides that give it the look of a fortress. One little knob on top could almost pass for a watchtower. I don’t doubt that the whole court of Camelot would fit on that rock. Why, if it wasn’t so wintry; I could almost imagine Sir Galahad or Sir Lancelot riding down to greet us.

  In spite of the constant weather delays, we are making some progress with the track.

  December 30

  After envying the spikers all these months, it is exciting to finally be a part of their crew. I love the heft of my hickory-handled maul and the ring of the steel.

  The one thing that is hard to get used to is swinging with the same motion all day long. On the grading crew there was more variety. I’d switch off between picking and shoveling, and hauling fill, but on this crew it’s pound, pound all day long.

  It is satisfying to hit those spikes home, though. And I stay so busy that I don’t even mind the cold. Ping, ping, ping. The sound rings out. Ping, ping, ping. The spike bites into the wood, and I step forward again.

  I don’t always finish in three hits, but I keep trying. Pa claims I need to swing smoother and just let the weight of my maul do the work, but I love to let loose with all my strength. That’s when I usually clang the rail, and everyone but Pa has a good chuckle. While the fellows tease me about my poor aim, he stands off by himself and shakes his head.

  All I can do is try my best, and spiking down these rails gives me the feeling that I’m playing a direct part in tying this country together. To prove it, I only have to glance back and see those new rails pointing all the way back to Omaha.

  January 3, 1869

  Everyone is talking about nitroglycerin. Since the tunnels are going so slow, Durant has ordered the crews to use it full-time. The powder men say it is so dangerous that it should be banned.

  A few of the fellows started telling stories about nitro after supper tonight. We’d all heard about the Wells Fargo office in San Francisco, where a shipment of the stuff exploded not too long ago. Fourteen people were killed, and witnesses said that an arm flew out a third-story window. But a man named Kelly told us a story I’d never heard. Kelly used to live in New York, and he said that a box of the stuff went off by accident in a place called Greenwich Village. A friend of his, who was a porter in the Wyoming Hotel, smelled something hot one morning. He found a case of nitro, smoking and bubbling in a cloak room. When he tossed it out into the street, the blast blew away half the housefronts on the block and left a huge hole of boiling yellow mud in the middle of the street. Kelly says that his buddy is still stone deaf.

  Another fellow told us about a ship down in Panama that was unloading a crate of nitro a couple of years back. The cargo net accidentally bumped the side of the boat, and the steamship and the pier both disappeared in a huge ball of flame.

  When another man laughed and said that nothing could be that powerful, he looked him right in the eye and said, “Sixty men died. I was a longshoreman and saw it with my own eyes. Charred wood and hunks of flesh landed on tin roofs a half a mile away.”

  There was no bragging in his voice, just a quiet sadness that told me he was telling the gospel truth. I hope I never have to fool with that stuff.

  January 5

  It’s usually tough to get old-timers to agree, but every single one of them says that this is the worst winter in the history of the Wasatch Range. I sure wouldn’t argue.

  January 8

  Though Pa is not one to complain, he’s upset about the shoddy work that they are having us do on the track. He says the grades are too steep and the curves are too sharp for safe travel. But whenever he talks to Mr. Casement about it, Casement says Durant is the one who’s pushing.

  “Every mile is money in his pocket,” Pa said today. “But what good is track that can’t hold up a train?”

  January 15

  Echo City, Utah (mile 991)

  Outside of Echo City are two high cliffs on opposite sides of our roadway. I heard Michael Kennedy call one of the cliffs “Death Rock,” and I asked him why. He said that during the Mormon War, a militiaman taunted a soldier who was standing on the opposite ridge to take a shot at him. Though he was more than a quarter of a mile away, the bullet caught him flush in the head.

  Along with the tents and shanties here in Echo City, a few wood-frame storefronts have gone up. There’s a Wells Fargo office, Watson Hardware, Asplund and Conner Dining Hall, a bank, and a furnishing goods store, in addition to the usual mix of saloons and hotels.

  January 16

  We are spending as much time fixing derailments as laying track. Nothing is worse than trying to jack a heavy locomotive back onto the rails when it’s this cold. Half the time, I’ve got no feeling in my fingers. I skinned my knuckles so bad yesterday that the back of my hand got crusted up with blood and stuck inside my glove, but I was so cold that I never felt a thing.

  I swear a fellow could cut his fingers plumb off in this weather and hardly know it.

  January 17

  We are finally done for the winter. Durant was hoping to make it an even thousand miles before we quit, but we came up a few rails short.

  January 18

  Storms howl through the Wasatch nearly every day. Some nights the wind hits such a high pitch that I have to cover my ears to get to sleep. The walls and ceiling of the bunk car are thick with frost every morning. I miss the warm weather and that little tent we used to pitch beside the grade.

  Winter out here is nothing but shoveling. Back in Chicago, it meant skating and sliding games and sleigh rides. One day, when John and I were little, Mother helped us make a snowman that was the spitting image of our uncle Willy. We dressed him in an old coat, put a hat on his head backwards, and stuck a big cigar in his mouth. When Willy came home from work, half the neighborhood was gathered in our yard having a good laugh.

  January 20

  Though the tracklaying has stopped, the tunnel work is going full speed ahead. As dangerous as the nitro is, Pa says the crews are blasting away six feet of rock a day instead of the two they made with black powder.

  One of the most dangerous things about the nitro is disposing of the used blasting cans. Even a half a drop left in those containers can explode without warning. Two fellows got cut up bad last week when they tossed an empty can into a gully and it blew. Now they’re taking the empties away from camp to dispose of them. The boys pile up the cans, start a little fire, and then run for cover. The last time they blew up some cans, Pa and I could see tin shrapnel sparkling in the sky from a half mile away.

  Since John loves fireworks, I wrote and told him about how loud those blasts are, but I didn’t mention how bad they startle Pa. Last Tuesday, when we were walking toward the dining car and a pile of cans went up, Pa ducked his head like he was ready to dive for cover. He’s embarrassed whenever he jumps like that, but I can’t blame him for not being able to forget the war.

  February 16

  (1,000 miles)

  We reached the one-thousand-mile marker today. It’s a lone pine tree that looks like it was planted beside the tracks for the sole purpose of showing how much track we have laid from Omaha. It has a sign tied on its lower branches that reads 1,000-MILE TREE, and I’ll bet that every excursionist who comes this way is going to want to stop here and have their picture taken.

  Snow again, but I’m hoping it’ll just be flurries.

  February 18

  The snow is still coming down hard, and the wind has picked up. Just when I figured that winter was done, it’s time to start shoveling again.

  February 19

  The snow is ten feet deep on the level stretches of track, and it’s drifted twice that bad on the slopes.
It took one hundred of us shoveling for ten hours to clear a rock cut. Then the wind came up again and closed it back up in only an hour.

  I felt like heaving my shovel down the mountain and walking back to Chicago.

  February 23

  As tough as the blizzard was out here, they say it’s worse in the Black Hills. The drifts are forty feet deep in places — that’s high enough to cover the telegraph poles over twice. General Casement told Pa that it may be three weeks before the rail line between Laramie and Rawlins is open, and he’s worried about getting enough supplies for the upcoming season.

  February 29

  Devil’s Gate, Utah (mile 1,018)

  The tracklaying for 1869 has already started. Pa says that Durant is pushing harder than ever, and he doesn’t care a lick about the quality of the work. He wants his miles.

  Spring is finally creeping up on us. Snow melt is rushing down every creek and canyon.

  We reached a bridge that spans a black chasm called Devil’s Gate. As scary as the Dale Creek Bridge was, Devil’s Gate beats it hands down. The bridge is anchored with the same sort of feeble ropes and cabling, but what makes it so frightening is the river. Dark, foam-flecked water roars past the pilings and makes the whole framework of the bridge tremble.

  Our engineer pushed the work train over the trestle one car at a time. The tracks creaked and swayed. When I looked down from the flatcar, I could see that most of the timbering was just green logs with ragged strips of bark hanging loose in the wind.