The thread on this forum about a quote on the building of the trans-continental railroad reminded me of a story that I heard a number of years ago. It concerned the question of why there are so many Eucalyptus trees in California.
The story that I heard was that the Northern Pacific railroad one of the partners that originally spanned the continent used up the vast majority of the timber for railroad ties and the Southern Pacific in their effort to span the continent with a southern route went looking for a source of wood for cross ties. They found it in Australia in the form of Eucalyptus trees. They grew incredibly fast and were of strong, hard wood. They imported the trees and planted them in orchards in California, whole forests of them. Either the trees came to maturity just about the time that the railroad reached the California desert or they also imported a large number of Eucalyptus wood ties for their railroad to use while their forests of railroad ties were maturing. The railroad engineers laid the track through the desert using the Eucalyptus ties. By the time that the railroad was ready to carry traffic, the ties had sat in the sun and dried out the ties and they had twisted themselves up like pretzels. Oh well, back to the drawing board, but what to do about the forests of Eucalyptus trees? They just left them and the trees took off like a prairie fire and spread all over California. The desert provided a natural barrier to the California trees, so they remained California’s problem to this day.
Now, is this story true?