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III. Railroad Infrastructure Towns, section stations, and sidings, were all critical components of the Transcontinental Railroad. Taken individually each held a seemingly insignificant place in a vast, often featureless, landscape. But they were bound together by an unprecedented transportation system, by an infrastructure that formed the backbone of the railroad. According to the Oxford Dictionary, “infrastructure” can be defined as: the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or an enterprise. In the present context the “enterprise” is the Transcontinental Railroad. The physical facilities comprising the Transcontinental Railroad are the grade (including rails and crossties), water supply features, trestles, and culverts.
Without “infrastructure” the Transcontinental Railroad would have remained little more than a grand dream in the mind of a handful of well-heeled entrepreneurs. The grade provided the physical connection between east and west, and among the various towns and sidings along its course. The uneven terrain required trestles to traverse, and culverts of many sizes and configurations were needed to manage drainage so that water run-off would not threaten the integrity of the grade. The Grade An elemental component of infrastructure is the grade upon which the rails are laid. As it is used here “grade” refers to the engineered surface that is home to the rails and crossties comprising what we think of as “the railroad.” In most cases the grade is an earthen berm of standardized configuration (Figure 11). In other cases, the grade is the surface of a “cut” prepared by digging through high spots in local
Figure 11: Special Roadbed for Arid Regions. Southern Pacific Company Common Standard 1895, Southern Pacific Engineering Department, San Francisco Sou~hem P.acific Com~ny.
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