Six years after the groundbreaking, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at Promontory Summit, Utah. It was here on May 10, 1869, that Stanford drove The Last Spike (or golden spike) that joined the rails of the transcontinental railroad.

The first emigrants to come all the way to Ogden by rail arrived June 25, 1869, over the Union Pacific.

Just one week after the golden spike was driven to celebrate the completion of the transcontinental railway, ground was broken for a branch line from Ogden to Salt Lake City, the Utah Central Railway.

On a cold day in early January 1870, a gathering of fifteen thousand people in Salt Lake City cheered the completion of the Utah Central Railway.