In 1870, a newspaper editor excitedly reported the presence of a UP survey crew working its way west through Madeline Pass. The editor stated the crew was in the process of staking out a new line running from Promontory west into Big Valley, with the line to either go north to the Willamette Valley or south to the Sacramento Valley. However, additional reporting determined the crew was not a UP crew, nor a railroad surveying crew at all, but instead a Lassen County survey team surveying the public lands in the area.

In 1888/1889, UP did conduct a survey for a proposed railroad running from the Oregon Short Line in northeastern Oregon southwest across the state of Oregon and into northeastern California. The surveyed route roughly followed the path taken by today's Highwy 299 from Redding northeast through Burney and Alturas. A couple parties associated with the survey crew did purchase a few key tracts of land along the route.

Quite a few railroad surveys ran up and down the length of the Pit River. Central Pacific ran a survey up the Pit for a projected line in 1875, and the chief of that survey party later went on to lay out the foundations for what would evenutally become Pacific Gas & Electric's Pit River projects.

Fact is, far more railroad lines were projected or surveyed that ever actually got built, and you can have a lot of fun pondering them and wondering "what if?"....

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV