The biggest event of the year at Golden Spike National Historical Park has been to both extremes over the last two years.
Following the biggest crowds it has ever hosted in during the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 2019, the park was empty on May 10 last year after the annual celebration was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This yearâs events provided a welcome middle ground for history buffs, railroad enthusiasts and other curious visitors who turned out over the course of the three-day celebration.
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With some pandemic-related precautions still in place at National Park Service facilities, this yearâs festivities were somewhat scaled back. Daily crowds numbered in the hundreds instead of the tens of thousands who came from around the globe in 2019, and the usual food vendors and some other ancillary activities were absent this year. But the centerpiece of the celebration â reenactments of the driving
KSL TV
PROMONTORY SUMMIT Workers at Golden Spike National Historical Park are busy preparing their two steam engines for the summer season.
It s still about a couple of months before they ring these bells for real. But for engineers like Tom Brown, the excitement is already well underway. Oh yeah, Brown said. Yeah, this is the best job in the world.
Like a kid at a train museum, Brown spends his hours doing what he loves. The Union Pacific s No. 119 and Central Pacific s Jupiter locomotives were actually built in 1979. They re both replicas, but they re down to within about a quarter of an inch of the originals, Brown said.