is the original route still in use or did they abandone it and make an easier route shortly after?
From my understanding, the current alignment is within sight or still on the original route for most of the way. It was such a good route that most of I-80 through Nebraska and Wyoming are also with in sight of the original and current alignments.
…Many places in our great land the interstates followed close to old railroad alignments indicating how well those surveyors did back 100 plus years ago.
“Council Bluffs-Omaha-Lane: Original line looped way to the south via Papillon. Lane Cut-off runs due west from Omaha (this is what you see from I-80) using large fills.”
This loop was orginally done to get as much Federal reimbursement/matching lands as possible in the first years of construction.
dd
Lotsa busy mudchickens![^][^][^]
…Case in point as an example from my above post…The Pennsylvania Turnpike up, through and over Allegheney Mountain ranges. Originally surveyed for a railroad 50 years before…That part of the turnpike is now 64 years plus old. {I-76}.
A visit to the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Promontory is worth a visit. The area near Promontory is remote and largely undeveloped, and the old rights-of-way can be explored on foot or by car (rough gravel roads). The original UP and CP overlapped for a few miles there; one section of UP built in 1869 was abandoned by 1870, as the CP route was selected.
I visited the old right of way in Feb of 1994 below Promentory. Took a walk all by myself looking at the interpretive map and original work. Quite an interesting memory. The mood of the weather and nobody there contributed to the desolate ambiance of the area. Darrell.
If you look at ghosttowns.com for Box Elder county, Utah you can see a couple of places that were on the original alignment before the Lucin cut-off was made. There are some photos but don’t get excited.