'Golden Spike' event marks 150th anniversary of Transcontinental Railroad

SUMMARY

Thousands of visitors, many of them train enthusiasts, are expected to crowd onto a remote bluff in northern Utah for a day of speeches, music and a historical re-enactment marking the 150th anniversary of the first US Transcontinental Railroad. The three-day "Golden Spike" celebration opened on Friday at Promontory Summit, 66 miles (106 km) northwest of Salt Lake City, where the Central Pacific Railroad from the west was joined to the Union Pacific Railroad from the east on May 10, 1869. Now a national historic park, the wind-swept site saw the culmination of a six-year feat of 19th-century engineering that transformed the American West as the nation was emerging from a bloody civil war.

By ReutersMay 10, 2019 4:13:02 PM IST (Published)

People view the historic Living Legend No. 844 steam locomotive before the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad at Ogden Union Station in Ogden, Utah, US. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Construction of the railway, which cut US coast-to-coast travel time from many months to just a week, greatly accelerated Anglo-European settlement of the American West and aligned it politically with the Union states of the North. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Construction of the railway also hastened the demise of the Plains Indians, as well as the bison herds on which they depended. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Fred Baney, 73, of Salt Lake City, wears a hat decorated with railroad pins before the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad at Ogden Union Station in Ogden, Utah. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Russell Low, 66, of San Diego, whose great-grandfather, Hung Lai Wah, emigrated from China to work on the Transcontinental Railroad, looks at a trestle on the historic railroad grade, before the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

A group including descendants of Chinese Transcontinental Railroad workers visits a trestle on a historic railroad grade, before the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, near Kelton, Utah. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester