Folks,
My kids cartoon movie “Spirit” bashes the westward U.S. expansion of the 1800’s from a horses viewpoint.
At one point, a huge team of horses begins to drag a steamer overland & uphill on a sledge. Purportedly they are behind track laying schedule but have to get the engine to the other side (of the divide?). It fails, though.
I’ve asked several railfans about whether this was ever tried. No one knows. Do you?
-Bill Shust
…I have no certainty of the story but seems I’ve heard the tail someplace before…Maybe it did, at least some form of it.
“Fails” is something of an understatement…
From the level of detail in the sledge, its couplings, and the locomotive, it seems clear to me that the animators had a historical source to work from. I don’t have any ‘bonus’ features such as a discussion track on my budget copy, but I suspect a request to Dreamworks – or, more specifically, to the individuals who are named in the credits as having oversight of this aspect of the production – might provide the information you need.
Note that one of the characters mentions the name of the railroad in question (in the scene where they think they’ve ‘broken’ the horse) – IIRC Northern Pacific.
I had thought there was some ‘dramatic license’ in the location and circumstances of this transfer (and would also think that small locomotives (e.g. for construction) would be transported across first; we do see completed track on the ‘other side’)
Stonewall Jackson’s troops actually moved at least one locomotive overland (not on rails) during the War for Southern Independence, after capturing a bunch of B&O rolling stock at Harper’s Ferry. The story was in TRAINS sometime in the last few years. Anyway, it was so difficult and so much work the project was abandoned after only one or a very few were moved, even though the Confederacy desperately needed the locomotives.
I have a vague and exceedingly fuzzy memory of the feat having been tried – and managed – during the construction of the CP across the Sierra Nevada. But as I say, very vague, very fuzzy, and no references of any sort to hand…
Why not - in the UK locos were sometimes elivered by dragging them down the road in the early days. If you have an isolated section then you gotta get them there somehow
For a similar feat see the story of the Royal Navy party that dragged 2 steam launches overland to Lake Victoria in the First World War.
Years ago there was a made-for-TV movie starring Dan Blocker where he was trying to get a steam engine – not a locomotive – over a mountain using a team of horses.
It gave a good feel for just how big an effort that would be. I cannot recall the name of the movie – and I suspect it never even made it to video much less DVD
Dave Nelson
I have not looked for any references, but I am sure it was done.
I once saw a photo of a very large (3 story house) being moved cross country (during the 1890’s) in one piece using rollers and oxen. If the same house were to be moved today, it would be cut up and moved in sections.
During the race to Promentory Utah CP supposedly built a temporary lines around mountains to keep forward progress going while the tunnel crews finised up behind. I dont know If UP ever tried the same thing, CP did get stuck for almost a year blasting out the Summit Tunnel above Truckee. There was simply no other way around. Surveyers, graders, and as many other disciplines that could be sent ahead were, and when the tunnel was finally completed they made very fast progress.
The movie may have been “Something for a Lonely Man”.
According to Ambrose’s “Nothing Like it in the World,” on November 24, 1866, two engines were removed from the tracks at Cisco, CA and placed on skid sleds (half logs, greased on the bottom. “Hundreds of Chinese tugged a ropes alongside mule tieam and horse teams to skid the locomotives over the summit”
However, the “Empire Express” states that CP had plans to move engines and cars across the summit but this move was prevented by the heavy snows of the winter of 1866.
These were not the first engines moved across country because CP had removed the cab, wheels, and axles from an old 12 ton locomotive and skidded it to the top of the summit tunnel to serve as a hoisting engine so that the tunnel could be worked from four faces instead of 2. This effort used oxen and a specially built wagon with wheels 2 foot wide.
dd