The Days of "bull Teams" and The Virginia & Truckee Railroad
Before railroads were built, all freight and passengers were transported by teams of from 10 to 16 horses or mules. Ore was hauled to the mills by these teams, which also brought to the mines all the wood, lumber and timber required. Teams also hauled over the Sierras all the mining machinery, all supplies required by both mines and mills, and goods and merchandise needed by the stores and businesses. Each team hauled trains of from two to four loaded wagons. When the large reduction works of the Ophir Mining Company were in peak operation, lines of teams from one to three miles (5 km) in length moved along the wagon roads, and sometimes blocked Virginia City streets for hours.
In 1859, 1860 and 1861, great quantities of goods were transported across the Sierras to and from California on the backs of mules. When the Central Pacific Railroad line was completed, this hauling was from Virginia City to Reno via the Geiger grade wagon road, for transfer to rail for delivery to points east and west.
Ground was broken on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad on February 19, 1869 and eight months thereafter, the most difficult section from Virginia City to Carson City was completed. Rails were extended North across the Washoe valley, from Carson City to Reno, where it connects with the Central Pacific. Between Virginia City and Carson City, at Mound House, the railroad also connects with the Carson and Colorado Railroad.
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Famous quotes containing the words days, bull, teams and/or railroad:
“You shall have only a full and honest weight; you shall have only a full and honest measure, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 25:15.
“Not only the bull attacks his enemies with curved horn, but also the sheep, when harmed fights back.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This I saw when waking late,
Going by at a railroad rate,
Looking through wreaths of engine smoke
Far into the lives of other folk.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)