The U. P. Trail

by Zane Grey

First published 1918

Amazon EPUB

2.5(5)

From 1866 to 1869, railroad builders, labourers, gamblers, settlers and speculators move west with the Union Pacific across Wyoming and Utah. Construction creates temporary towns almost overnight, drawing commerce and opportunity into places that may disappear again as soon as the track advances.

The novel uses the transcontinental railroad as the engine of a broad frontier story. Engineering work, migration, violence and speculation converge along the line, while characters are forced to adapt to a landscape being reorganised by steel and schedules. The railroad promises national connection, but its construction also produces disorder wherever rapid growth outruns stable institutions.