"Old Railroad Grade" - Moor Summit to Pequops, NV
East of Wells, NV, the USGS topo maps identify an “Old Railroad Grade” south of the present Southern Pacific.
The west end of this identified “old grade” is at Moor Summit (Lat 41.112284N Long 114.800378W,) and it extends at least as far east at Pequops (Lat 41.202465N Long 114.65941W.) (Other locations between Moor Summit and Pequops are identified, east to west, as Anthony Siding, Holborn and Fenelon.)
Does anyone know whether this is Union Pacific grading, or part of the original Central Pacific which was changed by an SP line relocation?
Which leads me to the larger question: Has anyone made a catalog (or map !!!) of all the grade revisions of the CP done by the SP? In today’s digitized world, that would be a relatively easy endeavor for some ambitious soul.
Finally, I guess we should ask, What happened to the title/ownership of the unused UP grading between Promontory and Wells? But then, perhaps title was never conveyed to the UP by the US Government…?
—Abram Burnett
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 8:00 AM
4 Comments:
See: "Historic American Engineering Record: CPRR. National Park Service, c. 1998." and the accompanying illustrations.
From: littlechoochoo81@netzero.net
Subject: Old CP grade east of Moor
The old grade starting at Moor, old name Moor's, heading east is the original 1869 CP grade. There are many miles of this old grade all the way to Promontory and much is traversible by vehicle. The Union Pacific did very little grading comparatively between Promontory and Humboldt Wells, now Wells. The CP original grade is almost entirely shown on right of way maps used by Southern Pacifc and now, presumably, by Union Pacific. In a couple of places or maybe a few places, the old line diverged so far from the new alignments constructed after Harriman got control of SP, that it is not shown on current right of way maps. I would suggest contacting UP in Omaha about the availability of getting copies of these old maps.
—Lynn Farrar
I'm not familiar with the specifics, but at a guess, it looks like the sort of thing that would have happened during the Harriman era improvements (say 1901-1912).
Kyle K. Wyatt
Curator of History & Technology
California State Railroad Museum
111 "I" Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
My work address is: kwyatt@parks.ca.gov
My personal address is: kylewyatt@aol.com
From: "Meeker, Larry" Larry.Meeker@parsons.com
Back in June of 1990 I spent one week hiking and taking notes on the 30-odd miles of old CPRR alignment between Moor and Toano, and I've made several shorter reconnaissance trips since then. The CPRR line (1868-1903) is fairly easy to follow, even though the later SP line cuts across it in numerous places. In some places the CPRR appears as a berm by itself; in other places dirt or gravel roads now run on top of the CPRR.
There were three distinct places where I found what appeared to be parallel UPRR alignments:
1– Just east of Moor is a segment about 1-2 miles long, in between the SP to the north and the CPRR grade (dirt road) to the south.
2–Southeast of SP's Holborn Siding is a segment about 1.5 miles long, adjacent to and just northwest of the CPRR grade.
3–Midway between SP's Fenelon and Pequop sidings, north of both the SP and the CPRR grade, is a segment about 1 mile long.
All of the CPRR alignment segments had artifacts remaining (in 1990) that indicated actual use: rail, iron track parts, tie fragments, telegraph line parts, and sometimes car parts such as brake shoes. None of the presumed UP parallel segments had such artifacts, although another group discovered the remains of a "UPRR" canteen (or a shovel head – I can't recall) along UP segment 2 above.
Lawrence Meeker
Reno, Nevada
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