Subscribe News Feed Subscribe Comments

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Big Fill Trail Hike and ATK - July 2010

During the first months of 1869, the valley to the east of the Promontory Mountains was filled with construction camps of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads. Many of these camps became short-lived "Hell-on- Wheels" towns with names like Deadfall, Last Chance, and Junction City. Today, virtually nothing remains of these construction camps, however, the workers' legacy of a hand built railroad has been preserved.

Hiking the 1 1/2 mile loop trail will allow you to see first-hand some of the railroad's most difficult hand-hewn achievements, including the Central Pacific's Big Fill and the site of the Union Pacific's Big Trestle.



The Big Fill was an engineering project on the First Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S. state of Utah. To avoid a costly 800 feet (240 m) tunnel through mountainous terrain east of Promontory Summit, Central Pacific engineers mapped an alternate route that still needed to span a deep ravine.

Over two months, 500 workers hauled more than 10,000 cubic yards of material to build the rail bed. At its extent, the fill extended for 500 feet (150 m) and up to a depth of 70 feet (21 m).





Within sight of the Big Fill, the Union Pacific line was also attempting to cross the ravine. The Union Pacific was several months behind Central Pacific, and opted to build a wooden trestle instead of using an earthen fill.


The Big Trestle was built in 36 days. Six months after the completion ceremony, Central Pacific was awarded control of the line from Promontory to Odgen. They opted to take the rail from the poor quality Big Trestle and move it to the Big Fill, which remained in use until the rails were removed in 1942. Today both sites are part of the Golden Spike National Historic Site where a walking trail allows visitors to see the Big Fill and the remains of the Big Trestle.



This view is looking south down Spring Creek ravine from the Central Pacific's upper grade. On the left and right of the ravine are the eastern and western abutments of Big Trestle.



Looking west along Big Fill. The South Promontory Mountains are on the horizon. To the left is Great Salt Lake. This view provides a clear view of the abutments of Big Trestle.


Not since tunneling through the Sierra Nevada did the Central Pacific confront such a rugged landscape. This portion of the railroad also represents the most grueling construction the Union Pacific undertook form Omaha to Promontory.


Grading crews could work up to 300 miles ahead of track laying crews. A meeting point had not been mandated to the companies and they had no incentive to cease construction as their work crews drew closer to one another. Consequently, they built grade past each other for 250 miles. When a meeting point was finally agreed upon, both companies discontinued grading beyond Promontory Summit. All along the trail there is both complete grade and partially constructed grade.

Central Pacific's grade is the upper grade and the Union Pacific's is the lower grade.




Rock cuts and fills had to be constructed along the route to bring it within the required grade of 2 percent or less. Cuts were made to create fill by a two man team called "double jackers", who drilled holes in solid rock using a long, narrow drill bit, which was repeatedly struck with a heavy sledge hammer or double jack.


After the hole was drilled, a worker called a "powder monkey" would fill it with black powder, carefully tamp and fuse the powder, and set off the charge. A successful blast would reduce rock to a size that could be shoveled into mule-drawn dump carts and taken to an area that needed to be filled.


When debris from construction of rock cuts wasn't needed, the rock was dumped into mounds called spoils piles. The piles were size-graded, featuring different sizes of rocks.

This harsh terrain was home to thousands of railroad workers during the final days of the railroad's construction. Several Union Pacific camps were scattered in the valley below and although many of these camps maintained reputations as "hell-on-wheels" towns, only Deadfall held this distinction in the Promontory area.

Deadfall at Promontory - An Archaeological Mystery

Tents at Promontory 1869

This tranquil photograph of Union Pacific's Deadfall belies its rough and raucous reputation. (A.J. Russell photo)











The present day buildings in the distance are part of the ATK Launch Systems Group complex on Utah 83.


Central Pacific's biggest problem: how to cross Spring Creek Ravine. Imagine placing the first small, mule-drawn dump cart load of fill at the bottom of the ravine. The work took over 2 months of intense effort by 250 dumpcart teams and more than 500 workers, totalling more than 101,000 cubic yards.
To span Spring Creek Ravine, the Union Pacific constructed the Big Trestle, which was located 150 feet east of hte Big Fill. Because it meant to be a temporary structure, construction of the Big Trestle took only 36 days. The trestle was 85 feet high and 400 feet long.

(NPS PHOTO) About 8 months after completion of the transcontinental railroad, the Central Pacific gained control of the route from Promontory Summit to Ogden, Utah and trains began using the Big Fill rather than the Big Trestle.







Heading east past the site of the Big Fill and the Big Trestle, one passes through Carmichael's cut and then the wildlife becomes abundant.


This Great Basin Whiptail Lizard was almost invisible with his surroundings.

The "Cnemidophorus tigris tigris" is a terrestrial lizard of arid and semi-arid deserts to open woodlands where vegetation is sparse enough to make running easy. Their movements are rapid and jerky. They are among the most difficult lizards to capture.

Then two hawks began circling above.

Perhaps they were looking for lunch or maybe protecting something above me in the rocks.


Various shelters are scattered throughout the Promontory Mountains. They may have been used as a cache for construction materials or as shelter during blasting


Heading east around the next bend, more of ATK Launch Systems becomes visible across the valley.




The Promontory Mountains watched over the achievements of those who labored here. These achievements remain preserved at Golden Spike National Historic Site as a tribute to the perseverance and talents of all who worked to complete an engineering marvel and open a new chapter in our nation's history - the era of the railroad.

The Promontory Mountains continue to loom over the sprawling, isolated ATK facility, builders of NASA space shuttle rocket motors.



The plant, once designated as "Air Force Plant 78", once employed over three thousand people, who worked in 450 buildings, clustered in the various industrial and test areas that are scattered throughout the bare hills of the 30 square mile complex.







In 2001 Thiokol's propulsion division was acquired by Alliant Techsystems, a weapons and explosives manufacturer that operates a large plant outside Salt Lake City, the Bacchus Works.




ATK Launch Systems now faces a time of uncertainty and since April 2009, more than 1,900 people have left the company, voluntarily or otherwise, after defense and aerospace cutbacks in the shuttle and other missile programs.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Those Who Live By the Gun, Die By the Gun

Those Who Live By the Gun, Die By the Gun
---Ronnie Lee Gardner, 3 weeks ago.

The Utah State Prison is seen at sundown before the scheduled execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner by firing squad Thursday, June 17, 2010 in Salt Lake City. Gardner, 49, was sentenced to death for a 1985 capital murder conviction stemming from the fatal courthouse shooting of attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt. The execution is scheduled for just past midnight June 18, 2010.


The World's Most Barbaric Punishments
---Newsweek, July 9, 2010

An Iranian woman was spared being stoned to death for adultery this week, in response to international outcry. But the barbaric punishment is not the only medieval remedy still meted out by courts around the world.

Blinding

In 2003 an Indian citizen working in Saudi Arabia took part in a brawl, wounding a man's eye. Puthan Veettil Abd ul-Latif Noushad was eventually sentenced, in 2005, to have his own right eye gouged out as punishment. It was, according to charity Human Rights Watch, the third eye-gouging sentence handed down within a year. HRW was unable to confirm whether any of the gougings had actually taken place. In Noushad's case, the Indian government made an appeal for clemency. It is not clear if the appeal was successful. The State Department, on its website, still lists eye-gouging as a punishment that can be handed down by courts in Saudia Arabia.

Iran also allows chemical blinding. In 2005 a 27-year-old man named only as Majid had been stalking a woman, Ameneh Bahrami. When she refused his advances he poured a container of sulphuric acid over her. Bahrami was blinded and disfigured. Majid was sentenced to have five drops of hydrochloric acid dripped into each open eye, blinding him.

Amputation

Right hands have been cut off at the wrist as punishment for theft in Sharia-controlled areas of Nigeria and in Saudi Arabia. Repeat offenders in the latter country can lose both hands, and legs are sometimes taken for other offenses. An executioner, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, told the Saudi newspaper Arab News in 2003 that "I use a special sharp knife, not a sword. When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that."

In Iran, in early 2008, five robbers had their right hands and left feet cut off in one week—a practice known as cross amputation. According to The New York Times "doctors watched to limit bleeding and infection during the procedure." Hands and feet are also reportedly cut off as punishment in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia.

Beheading

Recent figures suggest that about 100 people per year are beheaded in Saudi Arabia. According to unconfirmed reports the condemned are given tranquilizers, and taken to a public square after midday prayers. They are forced to kneel facing Mecca, over a blue plastic sheet. "With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away," said one executioner, al-Beshi.

Shooting

Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer who elected to die by firing squad, was strapped to a chair at a prison in Draper, Utah, and shot with .30 caliber bullets just after midnight on June 18 this year.

According to the Associated Press his head was "secured by a strap across his forehead. Harness-like straps constrained his chest. His handcuffed arms hung at his sides. A white cloth square affixed to his chest over his heart—maybe 3 inches across—bore a black target."

Five police officers took aim from 25 feet away—four of the guns were loaded and one contained a blank, so no officer could know definitively that he had killed Gardner.

It was the first U.S. death by firing squad in 14 years.

Flogging and caning

Singapore administers caning for many offenses—including overstaying a 90-day tourist visa. The punishment is also common in Malaysia and Brunei. Unconfirmed reports suggest that officials use a thick rattan cane, four feet long and half an inch in diameter, soaked in water. This picture set and video from Malaysia—which we strenuously do not recommend you click through to—suggests that offenders are strapped naked to an A-frame and struck repeatedly with the cane, raising blood and welts. Foreign nationals are not immune—American Michael Fay was flogged in Singapore in 1994, despite pleas from President Clinton, and a Swiss man received three strokes last month The World's Most Barbaric Punishments
Stoning is not the only cruel and unusual measure courts around the world—and in America—hand out.
An Iranian woman was spared being stoned to death for adultery this week, in response to international outcry. But the barbaric punishment is not the only medieval remedy still meted out by courts around the world.

Blinding

In 2003 an Indian citizen working in Saudi Arabia took part in a brawl, wounding a man's eye. Puthan Veettil Abd ul-Latif Noushad was eventually sentenced, in 2005, to have his own right eye gouged out as punishment. It was, according to charity Human Rights Watch, the third eye-gouging sentence handed down within a year. HRW was unable to confirm whether any of the gougings had actually taken place. In Noushad's case, the Indian government made an appeal for clemency. It is not clear if the appeal was successful. The State Department, on its website, still lists eye-gouging as a punishment that can be handed down by courts in Saudia Arabia.

Iran also allows chemical blinding. In 2005 a 27-year-old man named only as Majid had been stalking a woman, Ameneh Bahrami. When she refused his advances he poured a container of sulphuric acid over her. Bahrami was blinded and disfigured. Majid was sentenced to have five drops of hydrochloric acid dripped into each open eye, blinding him.

Amputation

Right hands have been cut off at the wrist as punishment for theft in Sharia-controlled areas of Nigeria and in Saudi Arabia. Repeat offenders in the latter country can lose both hands, and legs are sometimes taken for other offenses. An executioner, Muhammad Saad al-Beshi, told the Saudi newspaper Arab News in 2003 that "I use a special sharp knife, not a sword. When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that."

In Iran, in early 2008, five robbers had their right hands and left feet cut off in one week—a practice known as cross amputation. According to The New York Times "doctors watched to limit bleeding and infection during the procedure." Hands and feet are also reportedly cut off as punishment in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia.

Beheading

Recent figures suggest that about 100 people per year are beheaded in Saudi Arabia. According to unconfirmed reports the condemned are given tranquilizers, and taken to a public square after midday prayers. They are forced to kneel facing Mecca, over a blue plastic sheet. "With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled meters away," said one executioner, al-Beshi.

Shooting

Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted murderer who elected to die by firing squad, was strapped to a chair at a prison in Draper, Utah, and shot with .30 caliber bullets just after midnight on June 18 this year.

According to the Associated Press his head was "secured by a strap across his forehead. Harness-like straps constrained his chest. His handcuffed arms hung at his sides. A white cloth square affixed to his chest over his heart—maybe 3 inches across—bore a black target."

Five police officers took aim from 25 feet away—four of the guns were loaded and one contained a blank, so no officer could know definitively that he had killed Gardner.

It was the first U.S. death by firing squad in 14 years.

Flogging and caning

Singapore administers caning for many offenses—including overstaying a 90-day tourist visa. The punishment is also common in Malaysia and Brunei. Unconfirmed reports suggest that officials use a thick rattan cane, four feet long and half an inch in diameter, soaked in water. This picture set and video from Malaysia—which we strenuously do not recommend you click through to—suggests that offenders are strapped naked to an A-frame and struck repeatedly with the cane, raising blood and welts. Foreign nationals are not immune—American Michael Fay was flogged in Singapore in 1994, despite pleas from President Clinton, and a Swiss man received three strokes last month for a similar offense.

Flogging, or lashing with a whip or strap, is widespread. It is used in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and the Bahamas, among others, for offenses from theft to adultery. In the Swat region of northwestern Pakistan, where the Taliban have de facto power, a commander was videotaped flogging a woman last year. The New York Times reported that she may have stepped out of her house without being escorted by a male, or spurned a local Taliban chief's advances. In any case, she was held face down and beaten with a leather strap, while a large circle of men watched. "Leave me for the moment — you can beat me again later,” she screamed, according to the Times, "pleading for a reprieve and writhing in pain."

Stoning

Convicted of adultery, 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani narrowly escaped being stoned to death in Iran this week. According to Amnesty International, the Iranian Penal Code specifies that "stones are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately." Article 102 of the Penal Code states that men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. Article 104 states, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones used should "not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones." The punishment is also used in Saudi Arabia and Somalia.

A young woman, Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, was buried up to her neck and stoned to death in front of a large crowd in the Somali city of Kismayo in 2008, according to the BBC. "She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply," said a local Islamist leader.

 
MickieDee