OGDEN RAILS
by Don Strack
The following text has been updated and expanded from text used in "Ogden Rails", a book by Don Strack, published in 2005 by Union Pacific Historical Society (ISBN 1-932704-04-3).
Utah State Railroad Museum at Ogden Union Station
The original plans to turn Ogden Union Station into a museum and convention center were first presented to officials of both Union Pacific and Southern Pacific at the celebration of the Golden Spike Centennial in 1969.[1] In December 1971, after the May 1971 takeover by Amtrak of all passenger trains through the city, the first formal proposal for a railroad museum in the Ogden Union Station was presented in a letter to the president of Ogden Union Railway & Depot Co. in San Francisco. The letter, from Ogden Mayor Bart Wolthuis, asked that the empty building be donated to the city for use by the Golden Spike Empire as a museum. It took a couple years for the proposal to be taken seriously, and more time for negotiations to be completed, but Ogden's city fathers were persistent.[2] In 1973, the city organized the Union Station Development Corp. to manage and operate the hoped-for prize,[3] and by June 1975, Ogden Mayor Stephen Dirks announced that a general agreement had been reached for the city to acquire the station, with details of the sale still to be worked out. By early 1977, all parties were agreed and the vacant station was turned over to the city to become a tourist and convention center. Renovation work began immediately, under the direction of Elizabeth "Teddy" Griffith, who as a volunteer for the Junior League of Ogden, had finished a study of the building's history that placed it on the National Register of Historic Places.[4] (Teddy Griffith stayed on as Union Station's director until her retirement in October 1993.)
Renovation continued and by mid-1978, a dedication ceremony was scheduled. To celebrate, Union Pacific operated its widely known 1944-built 4-8-4 steam locomotive number 8444 and a special train from Cheyenne. The train arrived a week early and was held ready at Salt Lake City, awaiting the big day. On October 21, 1978, the train left Salt Lake City with Utah Governor Scott M. Matheson and UP President John C. Kenefick in the locomotive cab for the quick run to Ogden.[5]
In an earlier attempt at railroad preservation, on July 18, 1959, two retired 0-6-0 steam switching locomotives were dedicated in Ogden's John Affleck Park on Wall Avenue. Union Pacific 4436, a 1918 Baldwin engine, and Southern Pacific 1297, a 1921 Baldwin engine, were donated by the railroads and displayed nose to nose (similar to the 1869 Golden Spike ceremony), with a granite stone and bronze plaque between. The many years of display were not kind to these two little workhorses, and they were finally removed in 1993. They remain part of the Ogden Union Station museum collection.
Union Station was designated as the official Utah State Railroad Museum on February 26, 1988. When the station was dedicated in 1978, UP donated a retired steam derrick, and a steam rotary snowplow, two of the last pieces of steam-powered equipment remaining on the railroad. To build a collection, other donations were sought from Ogden's railroads and from other corporations. In October 1985, Union Pacific donated one of its retired EMD Model DDA40X 6,600-horsepower Centennial diesel road locomotives, number 6916.[6]
In 1986, Continental Engineering of North Kansas City, Mo., donated Union Pacific Gas-Turbine locomotive number 26-26B. It had been stored at Continental's facility for 13 years, ever since UP had sold the retired units in 1973. The Gas-Turbines were powerful locomotives that operated regularly out of Ogden throughout their service lives, from 1960 until their retirement in 1972. Turbine 26-26B arrived in Ogden on July 10, 1987, and was repainted and cosmetically restored by volunteers of the local Golden Spike Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society.[7] In September 1987, Southern Pacific donated its GP9E 3769, a 1,750-horsepower EMD road switcher from the 1950s, which it had retired in late 1986, along with caboose 1555.[8]
During 1991, the museum acquired from the U. S. Air Force at Hill Air Force Base a collection of 35 former military cars and locomotives. Included were four specially constructed training cars used to train bomber crews for the Strategic Air Command. Of the 35 pieces of rolling stock, 12 were in better condition and were retained for the historic collection, with the remaining 23 pieces being sold for their scrap value, and the proceeds going to renovate the remaining pieces.[9]
A project to operate tourist trains between Ogden and the Promontory site of the driving of the Golden Spike was announced in February 1992, under the name of the Ogden-Promontory Tourist Rail Line. The proposal called for the operation of a tourist line from Ogden Union Station to Corinne on Union Pacific tracks. There, the passengers would transfer to 1920s-era railroad equipment and continue their journey to the National Parks Service's Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory. Running trains between Corinne and Promontory would require re-laying part of SP's Promontory Branch (abandoned and torn up in 1942) - the route of the original 1869 transcontinental railroad. The feasibility of the tourist operation was confirmed by a 1991 study funded by a $10,000 grant from Ogden City. A resolution, sponsored by Weber County Senator Winn Richards, and passed by the Utah State Legislature in February 1992, asked the federal government to provide $300,000 for a more detailed study. The 1991 study confirmed that the operation of tourist trains along the route would just barely pay operating expenses, but would never recover the expected construction cost of $12 million. Local public officials continue to search for ways to fully fund the project.[10]
D&RGW narrow-gauge 2-8-0 No. 223
Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad narrow-gauge 2-8-0 locomotive number 223 is the sole surviving engine built by the Grant Locomotive Works. It operated in Utah between 1881 (when it was built) until 1890, when the D&RGW tracks in Utah were changed from narrow, three-foot gauge to standard, 4 feet 8-1/2 inches gauge. Number 223 remained in service on Rio Grande's other three-foot gauge routes in Colorado until its retirement in 1940. D&RGW loaned the locomotive to the people of Salt Lake City as part of the city's Pioneer Day celebration on July 24, 1941, and after participating in the parade down Main Street (mounted on a highway trailer), it was placed on display in Liberty Park. It was formally donated to the city in 1952.[11] Years later, Salt Lake City wanted to expand a playground adjacent to the locomotive's display site, and on January 11, 1979, the city gave the engine to the State of Utah.[12] The locomotive's resting place in the park was needed for a new children's playground. The Utah State Division of History accepted it with intentions of displaying it at the former Salt Lake City Union Station of D&RGW and Western Pacific, the future home of the Utah State Historical Society.
The locomotive remained at Liberty Park, near the carousel, until March 27, 1980, when it was gingerly lifted from its resting place of 28 years onto a heavy-duty flatbed trailer and moved across town to a new location west of the former Rio Grande station. There the little locomotive sat for 12 years, suffering from varying degrees of bureaucratic and budgetary concern and neglect.[13]
After many proposals were floated to either restore the locomotive or sell it to other interested groups, in June 1989, the State History Office consulted with a professional restoration specialist on possible alternatives. Costs varied from $88,000 for simple stabilization for continued display to $1 million to make Number 223 fully operational. A public meeting was held on December 7, 1989, seeking input for the locomotive's disposition.[14] Due mostly to lack of funding from the state legislature, the 223 project languished until 1991. In the meantime, the museum at Ogden Union Station was designated by the Legislature as the Utah State Railroad Museum. D&RGW 223 was given to the Utah State Railroad Museum and moved to Ogden Union Station in 1992. At that time efforts were begun by the Golden Spike Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society to restore the little locomotive, possibly to operating condition, and those efforts continue today.[15]
(click here to go to Ogden Union Station's web page)
(click here to go to a web page with information about all of D&RGW's C-16 class 2-8-0s)
The Fire
The following was originally from Maynard Morris, via several railroad internet forums:
At about 2100 on February 12, 2006, the Shupp Williams candy factory building's alarm was activated and the building was checked out from the outside with no easily visible entry points noted. The building sits next to a flop house and transients are a real problem in the area. No one went inside to check out the alarm.
About 30 minutes later the fire alarms started going off and the Fire department responded. Someone made the decision to let the building burn and the Fire department pulled back for a perimeter protection.
Behind the building on the west side we had a fenced in compound with 223 and three railcars inside. The building turned into an inferno since nothing was being done to control the burn. Initially, there was a fire hose in the back spraying down the railroad equipment but then the buildings across the street were being threatened. The rear hose was shut down and moved to the front or side.
The following is conjecture. It was at this time the flying sparks set the caboose on fire. This then burned and set the boxcar on fire that was coupled to it. The boxcar had a metal roof so it was immune from sparks from the top. The metal top is tilted away from the fire which seems to indicate the car burned initially from the side away from the building fire. The gondola burned only on the end next to the boxcar. It was on another set of tracks. The side of this car facing the building was not scourched so the danger was not radiant heat but flying embers from the timbers in the candy factory. I suspect most of the heat went right over the 223 and since all wood had been removed from the engine, burning embers had little effect on the steel boiler.
The Shupp Williams candy factory building was at least 100 years old. It was a large brick four story building that has been out of use for some time. There have been a lot of dicussions lately with what to do with it since somehow Ogden City owned it. A musuem group wanted to make a musuem out of it but the city just wanted them to go away. All a matter of money.
The following came from Steve Smith:
The sad news is that the Caboose 0573 is just a jumble of truss rods and scorched brake piping, as is Boxcar 3576 including the metal murphy roof.
Gondola 1051 which was in very poor ciondition was damaged on one end. The real sad note is that had the Ogden City fire department would have cared to protect the west side of the building these cars would have likely been saved, but Ogden City has a mayor that wants the Museum closed and turned into a commercial stip mall, and he was conviently out of town in Europe checking out gondola tramways for commuters in Ogden (a whole other story).
The 223 was fortunate to have had all of the components removed a long time ago, so there is no damage there. The damage to the boiler and running gear have yet to inspected as the building and adjacent ground is still coinsidered a fire and crime scene. The old tender tank really didn't get scorched, and the tender frane and trucks were in the restoration shop, as was the new cab.
It is believed that the cars' wheel and truck assemblies went to Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad in Felton, California. The Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado got all of the short caboose parts, and in January 2008 the Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad got what was left for use on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad at Chama, New Mexico.
[1] Deseret News, May 31, 1969, p. A9
[2] Deseret News, December 7, 1971
[3] Salt Lake Tribune, October 22, 1978
[4] Salt Lake Tribune, October 18, 1978, p. A13
[5] Pacific News, January 1979, p. 12
[6] Extra 2200 South, Issue 84, p. 28; Pacific Rail News, February 1986, p. 21
[7] CTC Board, July 1987, pp. 26, 80
[8] Extra 2200 South, Issue 87, April 1988, p. 15
[9] Ogden Standard Examiner, May 23, 1991
[10] Salt Lake Tribune, February 22, 1992, p. C-4
[11] Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday November 6, 1986, p. E-1
[12] Salt Lake Tribune, January 9, 1979
[13] Salt Lake Tribune, Friday March 28, 1980, p. B-1
[14] Salt Lake Tribune, December 6, 1989
[15] Salt Lake Tribune, December 26, 1993
