August 17, 2026 - Golden Spike National Historic Site
Driving Tour and Hike
Leaving the Visitor's Center, we headed west to do the driving tour.  You can see the Great Salt Lake in the distance.
   
Looking out over the high desert.
   

About eight miles from the Visitors Center, we can to the turnoff for the West Grade Auto Tour.

If you continued straight on the (now) gravel road, you could follow the path of the original transcontinental railroad.  I'd love to do it someday.  It's advisible to have a four-wheel drive vehicle, however.
   
Now we're on the driving tour road, which is actually the old transcontinental roadbed.  Yes, where the original Central Pacific railroad track used to be!
 
   
The remote high desert was actually very pretty country.  As long as you have air conditioning and plenty of water.
   
Looking south.  That tall mountain at center may be Messix Peak.
   
Looking southwest.
   
The Grading Crews spent a lot of time "cutting and filling" through hills and valleys.  Where hillsides could not be avoided the grading crews would stair-step cut through them.  When they reached a valley or ravine they would fill it in or build trestles  (temporary railroad bridges).  Sometimes only a tunnel would get them through a mountain.
 
The material from the cut was used for the fill.
 
The below picture is a good example of an unfinished "stair-step" cut.
   

So if the gravel road sits on the original railroad bed,what's the deal with the unfinished grading on the left?   This is known as parallel grading.

"With huge land grants and government subsidies to be gained, both the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads strained hard to lay as much track as they could.  In 1864 Congress authorized each company to send graders up to 300 miles ahed of their ends-of-track.  In Utah, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific grading crews actually met and passed one another with roadbeds.  The result was utter dupliction of effort, with grades often running within sight of one another for miles.  Congress finally stopped the wastefulness on April 10, 1869, by establishing Promontory Summit as the meeting place.
   
Following the roadbed around to the east.
   
Looking south again.
   
What's that sign up aheaad?
   

The Union Pacific had once laid eight and a half miles of track in a single day.  Charles Crocker, Central Pacific construction superintendent, was determined to beat that record.  He shrewdly waited until the distance between the two companies was so short that the UP could not try again.

In a carefully planned and orchestrated evolution, from sunup to sundown, the Central Pacific tracklayers laid a little over ten miles of track in one day.   This marker is only a couple of miles from where they two railroads joined at Promontory Summit 12 days later.
   
It's a straight shot now.  Only a mile or so over flat land to the Golden Spike site.
   

The West Grade driving tour exited the roadbed just prior to the Visitor Center.  We got back on the main road and headed east about three miles to where the East Grade driving tour begins.

Now we are on the East Grade driving tour looking southeast.
   
Looking down at a cut in the Union Pacific's grade, which was not used.
   
Leftover fill from the Union Pacific's grade.  They deliberate placed the larger stones on the bottom, and so the fill piles have lasted all these years.
   
The Union Pacific cut stretches off to the west.
   
The West Driving Tour is on top of the Central Pacific grade and original railroad line.
   
That big flat area in the distance, southeast of the Promontory Summit, is the Bear River Bay salt flats.  I remember having fun flying low over them when I checked out the Golden Spike Site from the air back in 2021.
   
Driving on the Central Pacific grade and original road bed.  The Union Pacific grade runs parallel to the right.
   
Approaching a cut through a ridge.
   
Looking south.
   
 
   
They probably had to use dynamite to blast their way through this rock.
   
Looking north at the Chinese Arch.
   
We came to the end of the East Driving Trail, left the car in the parking lot, and continued on, taking the Big Fill Loop Trail.  We're still on the Central Pacific grade and original railroad bed.
   
To the right the Union Pacific grade is clearly visible.
   
A huge solar array sits in the valley to the east.
   
In the distance to the left of the solar arrays is a Thiokol rocket research and development facility.  Northrop Grumman also has a facility there.
   
Now we're looking at what is known as "The Big Fill".
   
Just to the south of the Big Fill is "The Big Trestle".   In this picture you can see both ends of the Union Pacific grade where a big trestle once stood in between.  The original railroad used the Trestle but when the Central Pacific was given responsbility for running the railroad, they started using the Big Fill instead.  I think if I was on the train, I'd want to go over the Big Fill instead of some gigantic, rickedy trestle.
   
This picture is taken from the west end of the Big Trestle.  You can see the east end at top center.  It must have been one big, long trestle!
   
Standing at the west end of the Big Trestle.
   
Looking south.
   
Looking west, we're now heading back to the parking lot on the unused Union Pacific grade.
   
Looking back at the False Cut.
   
Heading west back to the car along the Union Pacific grade, which has eroded considerably over the years.
   
Looking northwest at the Central Pacfic grade and where the original railroad ran.
   
We left the Golden Spike Historical National Spike at a good time, as it looks like weather is coming in from the north.
   
 
   
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