America 2009

Helper - Part 3

14th Sept – Goodbye Helper

With a heavy heart I left Helper on the 14th. Had seen a nine loco BNSF train come roaring into town earlier with an SD70ACe on the front and a very loud horn. We stopped in at Price to do some shopping and meanwhile they completed their recrewing or whatever and departed. As we sped across the desert (yup, more desert!) I spied them in the distance and soon we were slowly overtaking them. Shortly after we went our different routes.

  Typical Utah desert scenery. Note the storm building in the distance.

A while later I pulled over to get a breather and by a fluke (honest!) we were right next to a little access road to the Vista siding. I spied a train of hoppers being stored there and so went to have a look. While poking around I saw a tiny black...

Helper – Part 2

13th Sept – Soldier Summit

Was up early on the 13th to go train hunting. Nothing happening at Helper Depot, and Utah Railway looked quiet too. Headed up to Wildcat loadout to check for any trains there, but nothing their either. Not looking good. Drove up to Soldier Summit and endured the perpetual US-6 road works. Was only waiting at Soldier Summit for a few minutes before a BNSF manifest (assorted freight) showed up headed by 3 locos.

  Three BNSF locos roar up to the crest of Soldier Summit on a dreary Sunday.

 

  Emerging from one of the twin tunnels on between Soldier Summit and Helper.

Followed this train down, but just as we approached Helper it crossed a Union Pacific manifest heading back up the hill! I chased this back up to Castle Gate where it was passed by a train of Herzog hoppers full of ballast; mountain railr...

Helper – Part 1

This is why I love Helper; view from the motel :-)

I'm in Colorado now, but first I'll write about Helper. We spent three nights here, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Our motel is just off the highway, US-6, nestled between the Price River and the ex D&RGW railroad mainline. We arrived here and had a little trouble finding the owner, but once we found him he was pretty helpful. He put us in the corner room, which though rough was good enough. The pillows were a little tired looking so we used our own. But we had a kitchen, a fridge, toilet, shower, TV, and a bed, obviously. I could only get internet if I put my laptop on the TV, which was a bit annoying. The next morning I talked to Mark, the owner, and it was absolutely no problem at all to move us. Our new room was really nice; we had a little couch, a dining table, a microwave, a radio/kitchen light (handy), and so on. Best of all, I could sit outside the room and watch the trains go by.

Huntsville to Helper

After camping the night in Huntsville, we woke up early and gave the car a good clean out before heading off for our next adventure. We decided to steer clear of SLC and it's insane freeway system, and instead stick to the back roads (which are still miles better than any NZ highway). We drove from Huntsville to Mountain Green, where we followed the old highway for a bit. Then I spied a train overtaking us and suddenly my passionate hatred of the Interstate system evaporated and in a few moments we were whizzing along the I80 towards Echo, paralleling the trains. We'd soon overtaken mr train (a unit coal train) but then I spied another in the distance and soon enough a double-stacker (containers stacked two-high on well deck container wagons) whizzed by. I snapped off a few shots where I could of my coal train. It was a fair length with a Union Pacific and Southern Pacific loco on the front, and the same combination on the rear in DPU mode (distributed power mode, i.e. remote contr...

Goodbye Salt Lake, hello Ogden

We woke bright and early on the 10th (not hard with UTA's damn noisy busses roaring past our heads!) and were soon on our way to Ogden. Why Ogden? Well there is a certain museum there that made it worthwhile fighting the interstate to get there. Almost saw one accident happen next to me when the car braked suddenly and the following car starting fishtailing as it tried to brake too.

Anyway the museum had something a little bit special for me…

This, ladies and gentlemen, is D&RGW 5371, the last tunnel motor in the original RIo Grande colour scheme. So..? Well the Rio Grande is my favourite of the American railroads, for a number of reasons. 1) Their slogan was "the action road " and when it came to crossing the Rockies or Sierras, their philosophy was to chuck more locos on the front, mid, and rear of the train until it started moving. So 15 locos on one train was common. And fifteen locos slogging their guts out up ...