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Around the World in Eighty Days
Chapter 26. IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PARTY TRAVEL BY THE PACIFIC RAILROAD
"From ocean to ocean"
So say the Americans, and these four words name the great trunk line which crosses the whole width of the United States.
The Pacific Railroad is, however, really divided into two different lines.
The Central Pacific runs between San Francisco and Ogden, and the Union Pacific runs between Ogden and Omaha.
Five main lines join Omaha with New York.
New York and San Francisco are joined by an unbroken metal ribbon three thousand seven hundred and eighty-six miles long.
Between Omaha and the Pacific the railway crosses land which is still full of Indians and wild beasts.
It also crosses a large area which the Mormons began to settle after they were driven from Illinois in 1845.
The trip from New York to San Francisco used to take, under the best conditions, at least six months.
It's now done in seven days.
In 1862 the Southern Members of Congress wanted a more southern route.
Even though this, it was decided to lay the road between the forty-first and forty-second parallels.
President Lincoln himself fixed the end of the line at Omaha, in Nebraska.
The work began at once, and was carried on with true American energy, and the speed of the work didn't hurt its good construction.
The road grew, on the prairies, a mile and a half a day.
An engine ran on the rails put down the evening before and carried the next rails to be laid.
It moved on the new rails as fast as they were set.
The Pacific Railroad is joined by several branches in Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Oregon.
Leaving Omaha, it goes along the left bank of the Platte River as far as the point where its northern branch joins.
It follows the southern branch, crosses Laramie and Wahsatch Mountains, goes round Great Salt Lake, and reaches Salt Lake City, Mormon capital.
From there it goes into the Tuilla Valley, across the American Desert, Cedar and Humboldt Mountains, and the Sierra Nevada.
It comes down by Sacramento to the Pacific.
Its slope, even on the Rocky Mountains, never goes above one hundred and twelve feet to the mile.
This was the road to cross in seven days.
This would let Phileas Fogg, as he hoped, take the Atlantic steamer at New York on the 11th for Liverpool.
The car he used was a kind of long omnibus on eight wheels, with no separate compartments inside.
It had two rows of seats, facing the aisle on either side, which led to the front and rear platforms.
These platforms were found through the train, and passengers could walk from one end of the train to the other.
It had saloon cars, balcony cars, restaurant cars, and smoking cars.
Theatre cars were only missing, and they'll have these some day.
Book and news sellers, and people selling food, drinks, and cigars, who seemed to have many customers, were always moving in the aisles.
The train left Oakland station at six o'clock.
It was already night, cold and dull, the sky being covered with clouds which looked like they might bring snow.
The train did not travel very fast that night because of the heavy snow.
Counting the stops, it didn't run more than twenty miles an hour, which was a fast enough speed to reach Omaha on time.
There was little talking in the car, and soon many of the passengers fell asleep.
Passepartout found himself beside the detective, but he didn't speak to him.
After recent events, their relations had become a little cold.
There could no longer be friendship or closeness between them.
Fix's manner hadn't changed, but Passepartout was very quiet, and ready to strike his former friend at the smallest provocation.
Snow began to fall an hour after they started, a fine snow, which happily couldn't stop the train.
Nothing could be seen from the windows but a great white sheet, against which the engine smoke looked grey.
At eight a steward came into the car and said it was time to go to bed.
In a few minutes the car became a sleeping car.
The backs of the seats were thrown back.
Beds carefully packed were rolled out by a clever system, and berths were quickly made.
Each traveller soon had a comfortable bed hidden from curious eyes by thick curtains.
The sheets were clean and the pillows soft.
It only remained to go to bed and sleep, which everybody did, while the train went on across the State of California.
The land between San Francisco and Sacramento isn't very hilly.
The Central Pacific, taking Sacramento as its starting point, goes east to meet the road from Omaha.
The line from San Francisco to Sacramento runs in a north-east direction, along the American River, which flows into San Pablo Bay.
The one hundred and twenty miles between these cities were done in six hours.
Around midnight, while fast asleep, the travellers passed through Sacramento.
They saw nothing of that important place, the seat of the State government, with its fine quays, wide streets, large hotels, squares, and churches.
The train, leaving Sacramento, and passing the junction, Roclin, Auburn, and Colfax, entered the Sierra Nevada.
Cisco was reached at seven in the morning.
An hour later the dormitory became an ordinary car and the travellers could see the pretty sights of the mountain region.
The railway track wound in and out among the passes, now close to the mountain sides, now hanging over cliffs.
It avoided sharp angles by wide curves and went into narrow valleys that seemed to have no exit.
The engine, its large stack giving out a strange light, with its loud bell and its cow-catcher like a spur, moved along.
It mixed its shrieks and bellows with the noise of streams and waterfalls and sent its smoke among the branches of the giant pines.
There were few or no bridges or tunnels on the route.
The railway turned around the sides of the mountains, and didn't try to break nature by taking the shortest cut from one point to another.
The train entered the State of Nevada through the Carson Valley at about nine o'clock, keeping a north-east course.
At midday it reached Reno, where it stopped twenty minutes for breakfast.
From this point the road, running along the Humboldt River, went north for several miles by its banks.
Then it turned east, and stayed by the river until it reached the Humboldt Range, near the far eastern edge of Nevada.
After breakfast, Mr. Fogg and his companions took their places in the car again.
They watched the changing land as they passed wide prairies, mountains on the horizon, and creeks with foaming streams.
Sometimes a huge herd of buffalo, grouped together in the distance, looked like a moving dam.
Such great herds often block a road, thousands have been seen crossing the track for hours in close lines.
The engine then must stop and wait until the track is clear again.
This did, in fact, happen to the train with Mr. Fogg.
Around twelve o'clock a herd of ten or twelve thousand buffalo blocked the track.
The engine, slowing down, tried to clear the way with its cow-catcher, but the mass of animals was too great.
The buffalo walked with a calm pace, giving now and then terrible bellows.
There was no use in stopping them, for once they had taken a direction, nothing could slow or change their course.
It was a flood of living flesh which no dam could hold.
The travellers watched this strange sight from the platforms.
Phileas Fogg, who was in the greatest hurry, stayed in his seat and waited calmly until the buffalo moved aside.
Passepartout was furious at the delay they caused, and wanted to fire all his revolvers at them.
"What a country!" he cried.
"Cattle stop the trains, and go by in a long line, as if they weren't slowing travel!"
"Good heavens! I want to know if Mr. Fogg expected this, and here's an engineer who does not dare drive the engine into this herd"!
The engineer didn't try to beat the obstacle, and he was wise.
He'd have crushed the first buffalo, without doubt, with the cow-catcher.
But the engine, however strong, would soon have been stopped.
The train would have been thrown off the track and would then have been helpless.
The best plan was to wait quietly, and make up the lost time by going faster when the obstacle was gone.
The line of buffalo lasted three full hours, and it was night before the track was clear.
The last rows of the herd were then passing over the rails, while the first had already gone down below the southern horizon.
It was eight o'clock when the train passed through the gaps of the Humboldt Range.
At half-past nine it entered Utah, the land of the Great Salt Lake, the strange colony of the Mormons.