Public (dirt) roads connect the sidings of Wash, Mounds, and Cedar in the desert of Utah. Not far west of Cedar is a cut that offers great shots of eastbounds in morning and early afternoon light. Amtrak 6 is on the move at the cut in this shot.
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Ruby Canyon does not see too many trains anymore, with Union Pacific diverting the majority of traffic through Wyoming. On this day, however, a westbound rail train led by a UP SD60 an a UP SD70M is approaching the west end of the canyon.
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The siding of Utaline marks, quite appropriately, the Colorado/Utah border. The eastbound California Zephyr (Amtrak 6) is just coming up to some of the most spectacular scenery that Ruby Canyon has to offer.
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On a cloudy day in the desert, the Dirt Train is approaching the siding at Mounds.
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The Dirt Train, led by DRGW 5349, is just coming east out of the siding of Wash. The train will run another nine miles to Mounds before leaving the mainline behind.
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The dirt train is not making a run all the way to Sunnyside on this particular day. Instead, the Rio Grande tunnel motors will drop off the cars for the dirt train on the siding at Wash for temporary storage. After leaving the cars behind, the tunnel motors will run back to Helper light.
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The sun is setting at the west end of the siding of Mounds. The sky is extrodinarily red because of a forest fire burning in the area. The resulting smoke has drifted across the western sky creating wonderful sunsets.
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With the Book Cliffs in the background, this UP manifest (sporting three flagged units) head west across the desert, leaving Green River, UT behind it.
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One of the BNSF trains that regularly runs over UP trackage rights across the Utah desert is the MSTODEN (Stockton to Denver). Here, the train is clipping along at 55 MPH as it highballs the appropriately named siding of Desert.
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The sun is setting as this UP coal empty starts its push across the Utah desert.
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Although the desert across Utah is far from busy, UP does still send a couple coal trains across the desert on most days. This eastbound empty is headed for the Northfork Subdivision in western Colorado.
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Four Rio Grande SD40T-2s lead the so-called "Dirt Train" eastbound just east of the siding of Wash near Wellington, UT. The Dirt Train actually carries trash from the Salt Lake City area to a landfill on the Sunnyside Subdivision in the Utah desert.
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The California Zephyr has left the mountains behind and is now entering the Utah desert. The train will run through Green River and eventually Grand Junction on its way to Denver.
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