Photo 8 ...

... also clearly shows the minimal standards of construction quality used in the original trackwork, as seen at left, that both UP and CP used in order to advance the end of the line, and thus obtain government reimbursement at the per mile rate, as quickly as possible.

Chris

Standards

For the 1860's those standards weren't that sub standard.  The railroad I am modeling was still using cinder and ash ballast into the late 1890's.  Crushed rock was difficult to make in the 1860's.  It was very common for ties to be hand hewn and treated ties were not common.  If you notice in the pictures, its not like there are abundant forests, any and all bridge timbers and ties were hard to come by and even sourcing them "locally" meant distances of up to a hundred miles or more.  Tie plates weren't widely used until the late 1890's early 1900's.

Comparing it to modern track,  yes it was pretty bad.  Comparing it to contemporary track, it wasn't quite as bad as it looked.

...

In picture 8, the railroad on the left is a temporary construction railroad put in place to build the permanent bridge that will replace the original trestle bridge on the right.

It makes it quite a bit easier to move rock this way...

Temp Bridges

Exactly.  When the UP built the Lane Cutoff to go directly west out of Omaha, instead of south then west up the Papio Creek, they built a series of bridges as big or bigger than the big trestle in the pictures then ran dump train out over them and filled the bridge with dirt.  If you drive west out of Omaha on I-80 the UP is on a big fill on the south side, that is those bridges.  When they cut through the fill to widen the modern roads they found parts of the bridges buried in the fill.

Temporary bridges were pretty common back then.

TOFC

Photos 20 and 21 seem to show the first examples of TOFC that didn't become common for 80 more years!

Willie

That windmill is huge! Really

That windmill is huge! Really beautiful little loco next to it, too.

Great Pictures from the past!

Thank you very much for sharing!