Categories: Feel Good StuffMotorcycle Adventure RideNational Park

Golden Spike National Historic Park

To continue our Utah exploration, this blog is on the Golden Spike National Historic Park in Promontory, Utah. This is where the Transcontinental Railroad came together, with the Union Pacific building from the east, and the Central Pacific building from the west. The Transcontinental Rail Road was completed on 10 May 1869. It’s quite a story, and Golden Spike National Historic Park does a grand job in telling it.

Heading into Gold Spike National Historic Park.

The National Park Service advises not listening to your GPS, but to instead watch for the signs.

Jupiter and No. 119. Both locomotives were built in the eastern, industrialized US.

Keep going in one direction, and these tracks would lead to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Head in the opposite direction and you’ll arrive in Sacramento.

Jupiter and its coal tender. Both this locomotive and No. 119 (see below) are not the originals. They were reverse engineered from photographs and completed in 1979.

No. 119. Neither Jupiter nor No. 119 were supposed to be the locomotives that met at this site. Antelope was replaced by Jupiter when it hit a fallen tree trunk along the way to Promontory. No. 119 replaced another locomotive when the first one was chained to the rails in Piedmont, WY, by workers who had not been paid.

A reenactment of a famous cowcatcher kiss.

Another view of Jupiter.

And another. If you are a photography enthusiast, Utah is a target-rich environment.

No. 119 basking in the Utah sunshine.

I had a new wide-angle lens when I shot these photos.

Colorful Jupiter. Both originals, Jupiter and No. 119, died a death that didn’t quite fit their historical significance: They were both sold for scrap (at less than $1000 each) in the early 1900s.

And finally, headed back to Ogden, Utah, on State Route 183.

Susie and I arrived late in the afternoon at Golden Spike National Historic Park to catch their last presentation of the day. We hung around for a bit taking a few more photos and were about to leave when one of the docents suggested we stay a little longer. They were about to move the locomotives back to their garage, or barn, or whatever you call the structure where you park a locomotive. We were glad we did, and I grabbed this video.

Joe Berk