Seven Wonders of the Industrial World 4. Transcontinental Railway (4 of 22)

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

Well if it's crazy to say that a locomotive can climb a mountain l stand condemned and you may have me let off and confined to an asylum but, but you know a railroad can go where a man or a mule can not, provided you find the right way for it.
When an engineer looks at a mountain he sees a series of loops and curves that follow the contour rather like a river.
There will be obstacles of course that they require a bridge or a tunnel and, well l, l've calculated that we will need up to, well fifty bridges between here, just to get up to the summit and then some thirteen or fourteen tunnels.
Judah had drawn the route through the Sierras.
The hundred and twenty miles over some of the toughest terrain in the world, reaching a height of seven thousand feet.

But others had to build it.
That would require thousands of men and tonnes of gunpowder.
To lead the workforce Crocker hired the toughest construction boss on the west coast, James Harvey Strobridge.
Strobridge who had lost his eye in a powder blast enforced a crew discipline backed by a pick axe handle he used as his persuader and a legendary profanity.
Come on now get your ass up there, let's go.
Come on get a move on that wagon there, for Christ's sakes.
Come on.