Page 161 - Demo

The day after the photo on this postcard (published in 1982) was taken%u2014May 11, 1869%u2014California%u2019s Governor, Leland Stanford drove in a final ceremonial spike, made of 17.6-karat gold, to join the rails of the United States%u2019 first transcontinental railroad. The ceremony marked the joining of the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha at Promontory Summit in Utah Territory.The Central Pacific Railroad%u2019s locomotive Jupiter, also known as Number 60, arrived at the ceremony from the west coast. It had a 4-4-0 designation, and was built at the Locomotive Works in Schenectady, New York just a year earlier. Then it was disassembled and sent by ship to San Francisco. It remained in use until it was eventually sold for scrap in 1909.The other locomotive at the ceremony was the Union Pacific%u2019s Number 119, also a 4-4-0. It was built by Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works of Paterson, New Jersey, also in 1868, and it was scrapped in 1903.In 1974, the National Park Service contracted the O'Connor Engineering Laboratories of Costa Mesa, California to construct exact, full-size replicas of both historic locomotives. Because no original drawings of them had survived, new drawings were produced that were based on old photographs and research done on similar engines built around the same time. After the replicas were completed, they were put into operation on May 10, 1979, 110 years after the original Golden Spike ceremony, and they continue to make demonstration runs at the Golden Spike National Historical Park.