Guess what unit made its way to Ogden in August 2009? Our old friend DRGW 5371, the only un-patched Rio Grande unit on Union Pacific's roster before being retired. It had been in Cheyenne, WY for over year, but has been moved to the Utah State Railway Museum. Union Pacific donated the unit to the museum.
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The crew that spotted DRGW 5371 on track one at Ogden's Union Station (the location of the Utah State Railway Museum) did a fantastic job spotting it just perfectly so that it was in direct sunlight in the morning!
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It's nice to know that at least one Rio Grande Tunnel Motor will be preserved. Union Pacific donated DRGW 5371 to the Utah State Railway Museum in Ogden, UT. Unfortunately, the museum does not have a lot of funds and the Tunnel Motor may never be restored to a "pristine" condition.
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You may or may not be aware that every unit that is produced by either EMD or GE has a unique frame number. If you can find the frame number, you can (theoretically) find which unit it originally belonged to. 756046-16 is the frame number for DRGW 5371.
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A look at the face of the only Rio Grande SD40-2 (to date) that will be preserved. The original number boards on 5371 went missing when the unit was sent to Cheyenne after it was retired in 2008. Union Pacific was good enough to find it some really nice replacements!
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Here's the face of a rather unique unit. In the 1950's and 1960's, Union Pacific took delivery of a total of 54 turbine locomotives. The units lasted about 15 years and only two are preserved today. One of them is at the Utah State Railway Museum in Ogden, UT.
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About halfway between Ogden and Salt Lake City, this grain train has clear signals as it heads south on Main 2. The train left North Platte, NE two days earlier and is headed for Bakersfield, CA.
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A look at the front of the Rio Grande depot in Salt Lake City. The last train to use the station was the California Zephyr on July 31, 1999. After that, the tracks behind the depot were removed and replaced with streets as a part of the "Gateway" project for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
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Just down the street from the old Rio Grande depot in Salt Lake City, you can still find the Rio Grande Hotel. A lot of railroad history in this part of town.
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Just west of Grant Tower, this grain train is preparing for the journey down the LA&SL line. To get there, the train heads west out of Salt Lake City on Main 1. The train is coming through the recently rebuilt Grant Tower interlocking.
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A pair of SD60M's start pulling on a string of cars coming out of the Solar Spur on the Shafter Sub. Note the huge pile of salt behind the lead units. Talk about working at the salt mines!
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West of the Lucin Cutoff across Salt Lake, UP's Lakeside Subdivision runs in a (nearly) straight line for over 50 miles west toward Nevada across the Salt Flats! That's the distance from Denver to the Moffat Tunnel in a straight shot. Here, an eastbound manifest works toward the causeway across the great Salt Lake.
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This manifest heads west across the Lucin Cutoff. This cutoff was built by Southern Pacific in the first few years of the 20th Century. The original cutoff included a trestle straight across the lake. The trestle deteriorated, however, and was replaced with a causeway. You can see the causeway here to the left.
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This westbound doublestack train is running on yellow signals following a westbound manifest. The train is about halfway through Lakeside on the approach to the causeway across Salt Lake.
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The great Salt Lake is pretty amazing when you are standing on the shoreline looking across it. It's even more amazing when you watch a train run across the causeway from Lakeside out toward Promontory Point and Ogden! Here, a westbound doublestack train is doing just that.
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