Reno, Nevada, to Colfax, California Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America

with my faithful Appleton's guide.

Published in the late 19th century,

it will direct me to everything that's novel, beautiful,

memorable and curious

-in the United States. ALL:

-Yee-ha!

As I travel through this vast continent, I'll discover gold

and silver, movies and microchips, oil and oranges,

and learn how America's most famous railroad

conquered the wild landscapes of the West.

I have begun another American railway adventure,

that begins at the daunting Sierra Nevada mountains,

then along the coast of California down towards the Mexican border.

My Appleton's records that on May the 12th 1869,

the railroad communication from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean

was opened. A truly epic event that brought together for the first time

all of the United States,

unleashing the country's awesome economic power.

My journey will be the story of California,

a state that has transformed the world,

from gold and silver to Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

My route will take me from Reno

in the state of Nevada over the mountains into California,

through the vineyards of the Napa Valley

to the home of the hippie, San Francisco.

From there, I'll detour inland

to enjoy the natural wonders of Yosemite National Park.

Heading south along the Pacific coast,

I'll visit Monterey and San Luis Obispo

on my way to he City of Dreams, Los Angeles.

My last stop, close to the Mexican border, will be San Diego.

On this leg,

I will start in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

I'll explore Lake Tahoe and the old mining town of Virginia City.

From there, I'll cross into California to Truckee,

to explore an astonishing feat of railroad engineering,

before finishing my journey just outside Colfax.

On my travels, I'll discover

the dangers of America's toughest railroad tunnel...

They would light the fuse and they would run like crazy.

..uncover the story of the Silver State...

It was at one time known as the richest place on Earth.

..and get in touch with my inner cowboy.

Come on!

Use your legs, not your butt!

I'm alighting in the city of Reno,

Nevada's second biggest tourist destination.

Since the state legalised gambling in the 1930s,

it's been famous for its casinos.

And at over 4,000 feet above sea level,

it sits at the base of the stunning Sierra Nevada mountains.

Stretching more than 250 miles from Northern to Southern California and

east into Nevada, they are home to four National Parks,

and rise to over 14,000 feet.

The Sierra Nevada - the Spanish means the snowy mountain range -

is known to be one of the wonders of the United States.

And a sight that I've always wanted to see.

And I have a feeling that the best view

is going to be up close to the peaks.

And off we go!

The mountains are opening up before us, what a sight, what a sight.

It must be gorgeous in the snow.

It is. Just imagine all this just white.

There's something about helicopters, you get all the freedom you want,

-you can land wherever you want.

-Amazing manoeuvrability.

Yes. So, it's right in front of us there.

You see that big peak that looks like a pyramid all the way at the

-back that?

-Yes.

-That is Pyramid Peak, it's 10,000 feet.

I guess you fly this every day

and you're still impressed by the beauty.

Yes. This is definitely the best place I've ever flown,

that's for sure.

Appleton's describes the Sierra Nevada as indescribably beautiful

and impressive. And indeed they are spectacular and majestic mountains.

Imagine how they looked to those people

who had to blast through the rock

to create the Transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.

The Sierra Nevada was a barrier of rock and ice dividing the continent,

defying the United States' manifest destiny to be complete

from Atlantic to Pacific. An obstacle that had to be overcome.

One last pirouette, and we're down.

In the Sierra's Northern range,

straddling the border of Nevada and California,

lies America's largest alpine lake.

What a marvellous sight. Lake Tahoe.

Appleton's says it's about 30 miles long and 15 miles wide,

6,000 feet above the sea.

Surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Marvellously clear water to a depth of over 1,600 feet.

Small steamers circumnavigating the lake enable its exquisite scenery to

be viewed. By Appleton's time, this had become a resort destination.

But it was once a harsh, inhospitable wilderness.

Author Mark McLaughlin has written about the history of the lake.

-Mark, hello, I'm Michael.

-Pleasure.

-What a beautiful spot.

Who was the first white American to see Lake Tahoe?

A topographical engineer named John C Fremont.

He was a trained geologist, meteorologist, botanist,

cartographer, had all the skillsets.

He has a couple of principal things he's trying to do.

One was to get an idea

of the feasibility of building a transcontinental railroad,

and there was also this mythical river,

called the River San Buenaventura.

And this river meandered its way west,

and there were no Sierra Nevada mountains to block it

on these early maps because the information was so sparse.

And this river would ultimately reach to the West Coast.

-But that turned out to be a myth?

-That turned out to be a myth,

and that was one of the things that John was able to prove.

John Charles Fremont set out from St Louis, Missouri,

in the spring of 1843 to explore the Pacific Northwest.

He hand-picked his team of around 40 men,

including the renowned mountain guide Kit Carson.

Was it a difficult journey for Fremont?

Absolutely. It was the end of his trip that became the hardest,

when he had to cross the Sierra Nevada in the dead of winter

of 1844. They had problems with lack of food, snow blindness, and, of

course, snowstorms, but they keep plodding through and the lead man

had to take turns taking these wooden mallets and busting

down the snow, and finally it's in the middle of February,

John Fremont and a German cartographer

climb up to the top of a peak. They look to the north,

and we credit these two with being the first European-descent people

to set eyes on Lake Tahoe.

And miraculously, all of these men survived to get into California.

The Fremont expedition's findings produced the first scientific maps

of the West. Having led five expeditions,

he was hailed as a pre-eminent explorer,

and became known as the Pathfinder.

From a position where the Sierra Nevada doesn't appear on the map,

they soon discover that it's very, very real.

How big a barrier did it represent?

The Sierra Nevada are a very impressive barrier to both East

and West travel. But in this era of the 19th century,

the Americans were destined to take over all the way to the Pacific.

So we're going to try to inspire families to get in wagons and come

to settle this far distant land.

The first covered wagons came through the area just seven months

after John Fremont came through, putting the final piece together,

where we can cross up and get over the mountains.

A decade after California celebrated the gold rush,

Nevada was dubbed the Silver State,

when huge deposits were discovered here.

Appleton's tells me that the Virginia and Truckee railroad runs

from Carson City to Virginia City in the great Nevada mining region.

At one time, such was the demand from the silver and gold mines

at Virginia City for timber and other materials, and such was

the production, that there were 30-45 trains per day.

No longer. But at least some still run.

Work on the line began in 1869.

And it connected the area's booming mines to the Transcontinental

railroad, and a new depot in Reno.

The line was closed in 1950, but has been revived by enthusiasts.

Moving through this extraordinary parched landscape of yellows and

ochres and browns, my destination is Virginia City,

which Appleton's tells me is built over the famous Comstock Lode,

which, since the date of its discovery in 1859,

has produced in gold and silver about 500 million worth in money of

the day, and is now yielding about 4 million per annum.

Virginia City has a population of 12,000 inhabitants,

about one-fifth of whom are usually underground.

And I'm going there to find out what is left of that mining heritage.

On the southern edge of town is Chollar Mine.

Joe Curtice is a director of the Comstock foundation,

which aims to preserve the historic legacy.

Hello, Joe!

-How are you?

-I'm Michael.

-Nice to see you, Michael.

-Great pleasure to be here.

-All right.

-I've been reading my guidebook,

which tells me about the Comstock Lode.

-What was that?

-The Comstock Lode is a body of gold and silver ore,

a body of ore that was about 600 feet wide and about 3.5 miles long.

So you've got gold and silver mixed together in this ore?

Correct. Silver was what was primarily taken out of the area.

What was the scale of this thing? How many mines like this would there

-have been?

-Oh, wow... There is considered to be underground,

below us, about 700 miles of tunnels.

There were probably 150 mines, as well as another 100 or so mills

that were processing those gold

and silver ores between the period of 1859-1885.

This was obviously a major industrial operation.

Absolutely. It became a corporate environment,

owned primarily by the Bank of California,

which today is the Bank of America.

It was at one time known as the richest place on Earth.

The Comstock Lode was the first major silver strike

on American soil. Virginia City became an important political

and financial centre,

with some mining bosses hailed as "silver kings".

Immigrants headed to Nevada for a piece of the action.

It built Virginia City from a community of 300-400 people

to upwards of 20,000 people. And many of these people were Cornish,

because these were the people that knew how to mine things underground.

Did it progress from being a sort of rough and tumble place to being quite a sophisticated town?

Absolutely. Once the railroad came through, you could buy

the best of anything here, the finest of foods, champagne, oysters.

The women's millinery stores had the finest of clothing from Paris.

There were opera houses.

The most famous entertainers of the day would appear here on their way

from the East to San Francisco or vice versa.

By the late 1870s, mines on the Comstock were less productive.

And in Virginia City, unemployment rose.

A lot of the workforce left.

As it did wane to some degree,

then there were other gold finds in other parts of the state that people

headed up and took off to go and explore, and they didn't return.

So the mining never really came back after that.

Chollar Mine was one of Virginia City's most successful.

Miners blasted out some 17 million worth of silver and gold from these

tunnels. I'm keen to see what it was like to work deep in these hills.

I've picked my way along the tunnel,

bent double because of the low ceiling.

And despite the dry climate, my boots have been in mud all the way.

Not pleasant conditions.

Extraordinary to think that little tunnels like this,

many hundreds of them, transformed not only Virginia City,

the State of Nevada, the United States, but the world,

because of this enormous influx of gold and silver.

And it was all down to this grey rock here.

This enormous deposit of ore. The Comstock Lode.

Today, Virginia City is home to fewer than 1,000 people.

But there are still reminders of its prosperous past.

These boardwalks will have seen many a loaded miner making whoopee

on his day of rest.

I like Virginia City.

It feels real.

I mean, I know it attracts lots of tourists,

but they've left the shabbiness in place,

and so it has a certain authenticity that most visitor-magnets don't.

-Good evening.

-Would it be possible to have a beer, please?

-Oh, of course.

-Thank you very much.

Wow! What is that thing on the wall there?

That's a portrait of the Silver Queen.

She was one of the owners, and it was done as a tribute to the miners.

One silver dollar for every foot of the deepest mine.

It was 3,261 feet deep.

Her dress is actually made out of silver coins?

-Silver dollars, yeah.

-Wow!

I can't help noticing that you are wearing a pistol in a holster.

That's for rattlesnakes, coyotes, and sometimes two-legged critters!

I hope I'm not one of those two-legged critters!

-And what name do you go by, Sir?

-Reverend James.

-Reverend James.

They call me the Pistol-Packing Preacher.

-The Pistol-Packing Preacher.

-I am a licensed, ordained minister, yes.

And you perform your weddings dressed like that?

Oh, yes. I can marry you or bury you.

-You serve a very good beer. Thank you.

-You're welcome.

This morning at Reno, I'm continuing my journey,

crossing the border into California, through the northern range

of the Sierra Nevada.

Appleton's records this ecstatic reaction

to this part of the journey.

"A grander or more exhilarating ride than this you cannot find

"in the world. You sit in an open car at the end of the train,

"and the roar of the wind,

"the rush and vehement impetus of the train and the whirl

"around curves past the edge of deep chasms, among forests

"of magnificent trees fill you with excitement, wonder and delight."

I rather lament the comfort of the modern-day observation car.

These mountains were the biggest obstacle facing railroad engineers

and navvies, as they battled

to unite this country from coast to coast.

You may think that I obsess about the role of railways in history.

But really the importance of the Transcontinental railroad

cannot be overstated. Suddenly the gold of California,

the industry of the Midwest, the cattle of the south and south west

and the bankers of New York

were brought together in one vast economy,

whose energy and enterprise eclipsed the rest the world.

-Thank you.

-Bye-bye now.

-Have a safe journey.

-Thank you.

I'm stopping at the mountain town of Truckee. In the 1860s,

it was an important centre for the Central Pacific Railroad,

which built the western stretch of the Transcontinental line.

About nine miles out of town is the Donner Pass,

where railroad builders faced their highest and most formidable test.

I'm meeting Phil Sexton from California's State Parks.

Phil, an extraordinary view, absolutely beautiful.

What was the challenge for the railroad builder here?

Most sane people didn't believe that a railroad could be built

over a 7,000-foot-high mountain range.

And the people who built the Central Pacific Railroad had never built

a railroad before. So they really didn't know it couldn't be done.

-Who was the genius behind this idea?

-It was a man named Theodore Judah,

who came to California from the eastern United States in the 1850s

to build the first railroad in California.

People referred to him as Crazy Judah,

because all he would talk about is the railroad. He, like many others,

had dreamt of a Pacific Railroad to connect kind of the island of

California, way across the vast interior of the continent,

to the United States, which was east of the Missouri River.

He surveyed numerous routes and finally came up with the route that

we now call the Donner Pass route, where the railroad is today.

When Judah settles upon this route,

do other people think that it's possible?

This was not an unknown area.

Many immigrants had come to California over this very pass.

But it's very treacherous, it's very high elevation, it's extremely cold,

with some of the deepest snow in North America in the winter,

and very dry, hot conditions in the summer.

But you also have an engineering challenge of getting a railroad

that can only run at a 2% grade. That's two feet per 100 feet,

from basically sea level

over a 7000-foot mountain range at about 70 miles.

-What about the money?

-He attracted the attention of four Sacramento

merchants. Mark Hopkins, Collis P Huntington,

Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker.

They were all mid-size upper-middle-class merchants,

who had never done anything of this scale, but they had dreams.

Judah's backers set up the Central Pacific Railroad in 1861 and became

known as the Big Four.

With the money in place and with the support of President Lincoln,

who signed the Pacific Railway Act, the project began in 1863.

Now, this wasn't built by financiers.

-Who did build it?

-Primarily Chinese labour.

We hear anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 workers, and there are several reasons for that.

Many white Americans had gone to fight in the Civil War.

But also, just east of us in Nevada, there was a silver strike,

and many people were back there to make their fortunes.

They reached out to Chinese because they really had no rights,

so they were easy to exploit, to be honest with you.

And so this wall, would that have been the work of Chinese labourers?

Oh, absolutely. In fact, it's called China Wall.

And it's a remarkable thing, because it is a dry-laid,

75-foot-tall stone wall.

There was no mortar or chemical bonds that hold the rocks together,

they are mechanically intertwined like a jigsaw puzzle.

And for 130 years, that jigsaw puzzle supported

the weight of every train that crossed Donner Pass.

On the east of China Wall lies Tunnel Six.

At 7,000 feet, it sits on the highest point of the railroad,

and was the largest of its kind attempted in the United States.

The last train ran here in 1993,

when the old infrastructure was replaced.

Phil, the tunnel is a colossal bit of work. Tell me about how they made it.

The building of the railroad overall was America's great engineering achievement of the 19th century.

This tunnel is probably THE engineering achievement of that

entire project. This was the longest railroad tunnel in the world,

it was the highest elevation railroad tunnel in the world.

This is a 1,654-foot bore through solid granite.

The tunnel, like the other tunnels on this part of the railroad, were built by hand.

You take a rock drill, which is a piece of iron or steel with a sharpened bit on the end.

You use a hammer and you turn it by hand and you drill a 4-5 foot hole in the rock.

They would fill that hole with the black powder,

they would light the fuse and they would run like crazy.

And this was such tough work

that the average forward progress was 8-12 inches per day.

The Chinese labourers, how did they fare?

There were lots of accidents, there were lots of deaths, even due to exposure in the weather.

Work continued up here 12 months per year.

We know of stories of an entire barracks for instance that was

swept off the side of the mountain in an avalanche one winter.

There were fatalities from explosions and misfires

of the black powder and the nitroglycerin used in this.

It astounds me to come in here and just think of how difficult

this work process would have been,

done by people who did not know the language, who were in

a totally alien environment, and yet somehow they persevered.

And what is the significance of this railroad, do you think,

to the United States?

It made transportation for people and for heavy goods inexpensive

and reliable and fast. So it put the country in motion.

From Truckee Station, the railway heads west,

following the original Central Pacific route to Colfax.

I've dwelled on the significance of the railroad,

supposedly known by some Native Americans as the Iron Horse.

But in truth, America had developed enormously before the first

locomotive, by harnessing the power of the force of nature.

It's time for me to pay tribute

to the horse that's made of flesh and blood.

Just outside this small rural town, at Wolf Creek Ranch,

I'm told they've elevated classic horsemanship to the level of art,

teaching something they call cowboy dressage.

This, I have to see.

-Hello, Eitan. Hi. I'm Michael.

-Michael, hello.

-Good to see you.

-How are you?

-Nice seeing you.

-Beautiful horses.

You look like a little gentleman from England.

-Why don't you try that?

-Ah!

Wow, that is a hat! So, what is cowboy dressage?

Cowboy dressage is a blend between the old tradition of dressage

and the classical riding of the western cowboy.

Award-winning horseman Eitan Beth-Halachmy began riding as a boy

in his native Israel.

He's been teaching for the last nine years.

-Hi, I'm Michael.

-Hi, I'm Jenny.

-Good to see you.

How long have you been riding cowboy dressage?

-About two years.

-How are you telling the horse what to do?

It's a combination of the legs, hands, voice, there's a lot to it,

-it's not just one or two things.

-In the show ring,

this afternoon's class is putting horse and rider through their paces.

Continue working jog.

See, turn left.

What are we looking at in cowboy dressage?

We're looking at the gait.

The gait of the horse we use in cowboy dressage is a walk,

a jog and a lope. If you go back to the dressage, they have the walk,

the trot and the canter.

The cowboy prefer a smooth gait that they can cross the desert, rather

than one that has a lot of motion.

A to S, free walk.

The dressage goes back hundreds of years.

But those days, people used to train horses to go to a war.

This kind of precision was something that was demanded in the first place

-by the military.

-That's correct.

What we're looking for is more for partnership.

I don't ever think that there is such a thing as a perfect horse,

because you're always going to have something else that you can improve.

-Big step.

-Swing my leg over.

You look like you were born a cowboy!

-One hand on the right, one hand on the left.

-Like that? OK, let's go.

Gentle squeeze with your legs.

-Come on, let's go.

-Come on.

Use your legs, not your butt!

That's got it!

Around we go.

-It's nice.

-I'm enjoying it.

-Why not?

If you're going to be taught to ride, find an expert,

not some cowboy!

The original American colonies were founded on puritanical beliefs that

the worship of God and hard work were the routes to salvation.

But as the United States expanded over deserts and sierras,

more buccaneering qualities were needed.

Ambition, courage and greed.

And with the silver and gold rushes, money became an alternative deity.

When you remember how tough the Americans had to be to settle this

forbidding land from ocean to ocean,

you glimpse the origins of that freewheeling entrepreneurial spirit

that made this country a global superpower.

Next time, I try my luck prospecting...

-There's stuff shining here as well.

-Oh, that's fool's gold!

-Fool's gold.

..discover what entertained miners...

Bravo!

..and marvel at America's sweet tooth.

We make 15 billion jelly beans every year,

with over 100 different flavours.