Day 25. We drove to Promintory Summit today. This is the spot where the Union Pacific Railroad building track from Omaha west and the Central Pacific Railroad building from Sacramento,  California east met and created a continuous railroad across the country. A golden spike was used for the final ceremony; it is kept at Stanford University (Mr. Stanford ran the Central Pacific Railroad Company). The companies were racing to claim the most territory and ended up constructing about 250 miles of parallel grades before the government declared Promintory the meeting point. We could see the double roadbed for many miles. The tracts met May 10, 1869. In 1942 a shortcut was built to the south and the old rails were all taken up and recycled for the war. The park system found several miles of 1860s track to use in the park with the two repro engines of the of originals. We got to see one, a steam engine, chug up to the meeting spot.
We also drove along 2 miles of original grade through some deep cuts. Interesting! We were stopped by a bunch of cowboys herding cattle across the road on the way out.
Tomorrow we will do a few more local things.