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short line railroad operations con- tracted by UP, TRAX employees dispatch freight service to about 30 UP customers between mid- night and 4:00 a.m. on light rail property. The freight railroad gave TRAX a two-year testing pe- riod before the deal was made per- manent. “The real issue for the railroad
Soo Line #2719 pulls excursion trains from Duluth to Two Harbors in Northeastern Minnesota. All day excursions behind 1923 Alco Pacifi c. Trains depart from the Lake Superior Railroad Museum at the Depot in downtown Duluth on Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays, August 10th
-September 9th , 2012.
was — are you going to be good partners?” Inglish explained in our interview. They wanted to know, “Are you confident that you understand our business and you’re going to deliver our freight to our customers?” At the end of the testing, UTA had gained the confidence of the largest rail network in the United States. Next came a $185 million acquisition of property mostly on Union Pacific’s north/south (former Oregon Short Line) main line. “They had far too much freight on that line for us to even consider talking to them about any kind of shared use,” accord- ing to Inglish. So UTA struck a deal to pur- chase “lock, stock, and barrel” a 20-foot right of way on the east side of the freight line and combined that with a state-owned borrow pit area right next to Interstate 15. That en- abled UTA to operate its inter-city com- muter FrontRunner from Salt Lake to Og- den/Pleasant view and will apply to the 45 miles under construction south from Salt Lake City to Provo. It is single-tracked with sidings and spurs enabling the trains to pass each other on hourly or half-hourly headways through much of the day in both directions.
Yet Another Deal Following acquisition of the right of way through Ogden-Salt lake-Payson (the latter located a few miles south of Provo), UTA was able to broker a deal between UP and the LDS (Mormon) Church which owned some property on the west side of the freight line that was ideal for the freight operator’s need for an intermodal facility. In return for that “very efficient inter-
modal terminal to move containers from truck to train and vice versa”, UTA acquired other valuable property, including tracks formerly serving a Kennecott mine (discon- tinued for that purpose in the ’90s), which now have become the recently-opened Mid- Jordan TRAX route terminating at the Day- break Station.
For reservations call the
North Shore Scenic Railroad
1-800-423-1273
www.lsrm.org
10 JULY 2012 •
RAILFAN.COM
TRAX Extending Big-Time With the August 7, 2011, opening of the new routes, the TRAX color-coded services are: 1) The “Blue Line” from Sandy Civic Center to Salt Lake Central Station (a facility that serves TRAX, FrontRunner, Amtrak, Grey- hound, regional bus lines, taxis); 2) The “Green Line” from West Valley City Central Station to Salt lake City Central Station; 3) The “Red Line” from Daybreak in South Jor- dan to the University of Utah Medical Center. Coming up: In 2013, a six-mile TRAX Air-
port extension is scheduled to open. In some of the other cities with a train-to-the-plane, the service has fallen short partly because of the pre-construction assumption that rider- ship will consist mainly of airport employ- ees, with transit “airport” stops far enough away from the actual airport so as to be less convenient for passengers with luggage.
UTA TRAX; TEMPLE SQUARE, SALT LAKE CITY / STEVE BARRY
That’s not good enough for TRAX. Inglish says his airport line will serve
both, going directly to Salt Lake Interna- tional. Airport line passengers will find easy connections to other TRAX lines and to FrontRunner. On a recent visit (April 2012), this column inspected the construction of the future “train to plane” infrastructure that was being built. The wires have already been erected over much of the property, and you can see the rising TRAX airport station right at the airport’s Terminal 1. That will be a genuine “train to the plane” operation. It will be an extension of the Green Line that operates to West Valley City. As envisioned by UTA, the airport trains
will serve business and leisure travelers, airport area employees, park-and-ride com- muters, and area residents. The new opera- tion is intended to offer easy connections to downtown Salt Lake City, the University of Utah, West Valley and eventually to Draper. The latter will be developed by a 3.5 mile ex- tension on the Blue line south of Sandy to Draper. Its opening is set for 2015 or earlier.
Streetcars and Commuter Extensions In 2013, a two-mile street car line (on a for- mer Denver & Rio Grande Western right of way) will connect TRAX with Sugar House, a traditional heavily commercial neighbor- hood in south Salt Lake City. It is designed to connect all the TRAX lines with neighbor- hoods in south Salt Lake and Salt Lake City. Someday FrontRunner schedules may ex-
tend from Provo to Payson; UTA retains the property purchased there from UP. But rid- ership projections currently fall short of ex- pectations, as is the case north of Ogden to Brigham City where the transit agency and the freight carrier have yet to agree on a purchase price.
Farther North? John Inglish’s well-crafted success story with UTA was rooted in the old “crawl before you walk/walk before you run” strategy: Start small and come in under budget. From the modest beginnings, there has been no stopping the expansion. And who knows? Maybe someday — if an Ogden-Brigham City FrontRunner train ever materializes (perhaps in a future gen- eration) —maybe UTA will be ready to chal- lenge the canyons even farther north with operations into Cache Valley and Logan, Utah. In the mountains of that route, you can still see some rights-of-way of the old long-ago dismantled UIC interurban of my childhood, also of the old Utah Northern that ultimately became a Union Pacific branch. Long ago my Grandfather Vernon, noting
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