If you ignore the T-shirts and baseball caps, things have hardly changed. This is a typical day for the site, with a handful of tourists.

The flag is hoisted on a telegraph line. In 1869 a telegrapher relayed the Golden Spike event to the nation. (Coast-to-coast wired telephone service would come later.)

These tracks are used only for the replica locomotives. They are not connected to other railroads. The last commercial train through Promontory was in 1942.