Western Pacific in Utah
Everything WP, East of Wendover.
This page was last updated on February 7, 2010.
Additional Sources:
- WP in Utah, Station Summary (including branch lines)
- WP's Utah Branchline Operations
CHRONOLOGY HISTORY
March 3, 1903:
Western Pacific Railway was organized in California to build from Salt Lake City to Oakland, Calif., and incorporated also in California on March 6, 1903. (Gilbert H. Kneiss "Fifty Candles for Western Pacific" in Mileposts [Western Pacific employee magazine], March 1953; see also LeMassena, Rio Grande to the Pacific, p. 265)
September 1905:
During early September 1905, construction of Western Pacific began with the completion of three miles of grade where the new railroad crossed the existing Nevada Northern Railway, at a new station to be called Shafter. The work was being done by Utah Construction Company of Ogden, Utah. (Deseret News, September 8, 1905)
In mid September 1905 work started on the WP at Garfield, adjacent to the new smelter being built at that location. (Deseret News, September 22, 1905, "Dirt Is Now Flying Out At Garfield Beach")
January 27, 1906:
Salt Lake City granted Western Pacific a franchise to construct its railroad over and on certain city streets. (Deseret News, January 29, 1906)
Demolision of houses located on property purchased by WP for its route through Salt Lake City's west side began in mid February 1906. (Deseret News, February 15, 1906)
May 7, 1906:
The first trainload (20 cars) of rails arrived at Salt Lake City from Colorado Fuel & Iron in Pueblo, Colorado. Tracklaying was to commence immediately. (Deseret News, May 8, 1906)
May 18, 1906:
Tracklaying for Western Pacific began "this morning" at the Jordan River and was to extend toward the RGW mainline at Salt Lake City. By noon 1,500 feet had been laid. (Deseret News, May 18, 1906)
May 24, 1906:
Construction of WP began in Utah, matching the initial construction of WP at Oakland on January 2, 1906. (LeMassena, p. 265)
June 1906:
WP has laid three miles of tracks, from Salt Lake City to Buena Vista, where the company has completed a supply yard for construction materials and track laying supplies. During early July the tracklaying machine, recently assembled and now ready to go in the Salt Lake yards, will be put to work. Together with a force of 200 Greek, Italians and Austrians, the machine will lay one mile per day and will not let up for at least 100 miles. (Deseret News, June 25, 1906)
(There is no mention of the needed crossing of OSL/SPLA&SL just east of the Jordan River.)
August 7, 1906:
Sixty carloads of rails arrived for Western Pacific. By the end of August the company will have laid 40 miles of track at the rate of 1-1/2 miles per day. (Deseret News, August 7, 1906)
January 1907:
During its construction west of Great Salt Lake near the Utah-Nevada state line, Western Pacific encountered a bed of pure
salt 15 miles long and 8 miles wide. "They dug down six
feet and still were in solid salt." (Davis County Clipper, January 4, 1907)
May 2, 1907:
Western Pacific was completed between Salt Lake City and the Utah-Nevada state line.
Late 1907:
Freight service began on WP between Salt Lake City and Shafter, Nevada, interchanging with the Nevada Northern Railway, owned and operated by the new Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. (LeMassena, p. 267)
November 8, 1908:
Wetern Pacific's first timetable went into effect, covering only the trackage between Salt Lake City and Shafter, Nevada. (Jeff Asay, Track and Time, page 14)
November 10, 1908:
Western Pacific began operations between Salt Lake City and the Utah-Nevada state line. (Davis County Clipper, November 13, 1908, "Monday")
August 2, 1909:
Western Pacific began operations between Salt Lake City and Elko, Nevada. For the previous "several months" the railroad had been operating three to four trains per week between Salt Lake City and Shafter, Nevada where it connected with the recently completed Nevada Northern Railway. (Davis County Clipper, July 30, 1909; Jeff Asay, Track and Time, page 14)
November 1909:
WP laid the last rail for its line in Nevada at a point 160 miles west of Winnemucca. There remained six miles that needed ballast, Golconda and Winnemucca. (Carbon County News, November 5, 1909)
November 1, 1909:
WP completed between Salt Lake City and Oakland, with the last spike being driven at Keddie, Calif. (LeMassena, p. 267)
December 1, 1909:
Freight service was started between Salt Lake City and Oakland. (Gilbert H. Kneiss "Fifty Candles for Western Pacific" in Mileposts [Western Pacific employee magazine], March 1953)
June 1910:
A first class passenger train was to begin operations on or about June 1, 1910 between Denver and San Francisco by way of D&RGW and the recently completed WP. (Carbon County News, March 11, 1910)
August 1, 1910:
Passenger service began between Salt Lake City and Oakland. (LeMassena, p. 267; Jeff Asay, Track and Time, page 10)
June 1916:
Western Pacific Railway reorganized as the Western Pacific Railroad Company.
This was a California corporation fully controlled by Western Pacific Railroad
Corporation, a Delaware holding corporation. (LeMassena, p. 269)
WP's original mortgage prevented construction of branch and feeder lines until the mainline was completed. The reorganized company did not have that limitation and construction of branchlines soon began. (Gilbert H. Kneiss "Fifty Candles for Western Pacific" in Mileposts [Western Pacific employee magazine], March 1953)
December 1916:
News item about Utah Construction Company having been awarded the contract to build the Western Pacific's Tooele Branch. (Salt Lake Mining Review, Volume 18, number 17, December 15, 1916, p.34, "Trade Notes")
1917:
Utah Copper expanded its original tailings pond near Magna from the original 1500 acres to 5000 acres. This forced the Union Pacific (LA&SL) and Western Pacific tracks to be relocated to the north along a new alignment. As part of the 1917 line change between today's 5600 West and Smelter station, the two railorads created a new station named Garfield as a connection to Utah Copper's railroad. This Garfield station remained in place until replaced by a new Garfield created in 1997 when UP moved its mainline again to allow expansion of the Kennecott tailings pond. (Utah History Cyclopedia; Union Pacific condensed track profile)
December 28, 1917:
Western Pacific came under federal USRA control. (Gilbert H. Kneiss "Fifty Candles for Western Pacific" in Mileposts [Western Pacific employee magazine], March 1953)
1918:
WP completed a branch from Burmester to Tooele Junction, to interchange with the newly completed Tooele Valley Railway. (LeMassena, p. 269)
1918:
WP completed a branch from Ellerbeck to limestone quarries at Dolomite and Flux. (LeMassena, p. 269)
May 13, 1919:
WP received Utah PSC approval to close the agency at Low. Used primarily for water and feed shipments for sheep ranchers, along with occasional ore shipments. (Utah Public Service Commission, Case 179)
June 1929:
D&RGW's Roper Yard in south Salt Lake City was designated as WP's Salt Lake
City freight terminal. (Track and Time, Jeff Asay, page 140, based
on date of WP employee Eastern Division timetable 12, dated June 9, 1929)
December 17, 1929:
WP received Utah PSC approval to close the agency at Salduro, located 8 miles east of Wendover. The agency was opened in 1917 to serve a potash and salt plant, which has since closed. (Utah Public Service Commission, Case 1147)
(circa February 1932):
State Road Commission received Utah PSC approval to construct a concrete overpass
over the Union Pacific Railroad and the Western Pacific Railroad for a new
state highway, called the Garfield Cut-off. (Utah Public Service Commission,
Case 1263)
February 11, 1944:
The D&RGW AFE for the line change that resulted in the Grant Tower automatic
interlocking was approved. The documentation to support the AFE shows that
there was a 17-lever mechanical interlocking at the combined WP/D&RGW
and LA&SL/D&RGW crossing along 700 West and South Temple streets.
The formal completion date for the line change was December 20, 1952, and
for the tower building itself, the formal completion date is shown as May
20, 1950. (D&RGW
AFE records on file at Colorado Railroad Museum) (more details are on this D&RGW page)
Industry Events
June 17, 1947 — The federal Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ordered all railroads to install automatic block signals on all lines where freight trains operated at 50 mph or more, or where passenger trains operated at 60 mph or more. The ICC order required the installation of either an automatic block system (ABS), or a centralized traffic control system (CTC) for lines (Track and Time, Jeff Asay, page 76)
A further clarification of this ICC order comes from Mark Hemphill: "Actually the ICC order required the initiation only of a block system, manual or automatic, in order to exceed 49/59 mph. Automatic block signal systems include ABS, CTC, and various types of cab signal systems. Manual block systems persisted in the U.S. after this date and in fact I dispatched Manual Block-DTC on the KCS in 2000, where we operated freight trains at 60 mph in dark territory." (Mark Hemphill email, October 20, 2007)
1944-1951, Grant Tower Interchange
Between 1944 and about 1951, D&RGW, UP, and WP worked together to construct a new interchange in downtown Salt Lake City. (click here for a separate page about the "Grant Tower Interlocking", located just west of UP's Salt Lake City passenger depot.)
April 1953:
WP installed centralized traffic control (CTC) between Wendover and Pollard
Junction in Salt Lake City (Pollard Junction was where WP freight trains
turned south at about 100 South and 700 West, to travel along D&RGW's main
line to Roper Yard.) (Track and Time, Jeff Asay, page 140, based
on date of WP employee Eastern Division timetable 52, dated April 26, 1953)
1959
WP joined Trailer Train, the national trailer-on-flat-car (TOFC) pool. In that same year, WP started TOFC service, better known as "piggyback" service, between Salt Lake City and Oakland. WP, along with GN and AT&SF, had started piggyback service between Seattle and Los Angeles via the Inside Gateway by way of Bieber, Calif., in 1954. Competitors SP and UP joined Trailer Train in 1960, and WP's connecting road at Salt Lake City, D&RGW, joined in 1963. (The Tioga Group, Intermodal Timeline, 1954 to 1966, http://www.tiogagroup.com/page22.html )
October 2, 1960:
Last day of operation for WP's Zephyrette, the self-propelled single-unit
rail diesel car (RDC) between Salt Lake City and Oakland. The RDC was operated
as WP train 1 and 2. (Track and Time, Jeff Asay, page 140)
1965:
Southern Pacific and Santa Fe each attempted to control Western Pacific. The action was begun in 1960 and ICC took until 1965 to hand down its decision against SP and AT&SF. (ICC report re. Southern Pacific request for control of Western Pacific, 1965, ICC Finance Docket 21314)
May 1967:
WP and UP completed a line change to allow the construction of today's
I-80, west of Salt Lake City. Included was a new line for WP from about 1000
West, paralleling UP's LA&SL line west to Gladiola Street, at about 3200 West. WP's mainline was
abandoned upon completion of the line change, which included a new location called
"WP-UP Junction" at about 1100 West. The original WP/LA&SL diamond crossing at
Navajo Street was abandoned and the tracks between the new WP-UP Junction
and Smelter, 15 miles to the west, were operated as joint trackage. (Track
and Time, by Jeff Asay, page 94)
WP-UP Junction, a double crossover at about 1100 West, was added in 1967 to replace the "Navajo Street" diamond-crossing at about 1400 West. As noted above, Jeff Asay wrote that the change was to put the WP and UP(LA&SL) lines west from Salt Lake City, on a common alignment in preparation for what today is I-80, and the new superhighway's crossing over the two rail lines at Cheyenne Street (about 1550 West). With the common ownership of both UP and WP lines after the 1983 merger, the need went away to crossover to WP-owned tracks before the ownership changed at the Jordan River, and the double crossover was moved several miles west to Orange Street, about a mile west of Redwood Road. (click here for a Google map.) The map shows that the abandoned WP route was used as the location for Interstate 80, including the later interchange between I-80 and the later I-215 Belt Route, completed in 1985-1986.
December 21, 1970:
Western Pacific Industries was organized to control Western Pacific Railroad as a subsidiary. By June 17, 1971, the holding company had acquired about 95 percent of the outstanding stock of the railroad company.
December 1, 1970:
Alfred E. Perlman became president of Western Pacific Railroad.
January 1, 1973:
R. G. "Mike" Flannery became President and CEO of Western Pacific Railroad. Mr. Flannery had come to WP from Penn Central along with A. E. Perlman as Perlman's first Executive Vice President.
February 16, 1978:
Western Pacific Railroad was sold to Newrail Company, Inc., a company organized by Western Pacific's management and officers, including the road's president and CEO R. G. Flannery, to buy the railroad from its parent holding comapny Western Pacific Industries, Inc. The parent company had announced in 1977 to sell its railroad subsidiary. The federal ICC approved the sale on January 26, 1979. (see also: Newrail Co. -- Purchase -- Western Pacific R.R. ("Newrail"), 354 I.C.C. 885, 899-901, 1979) The sale was approved by the railroad's shareholders on November 1, 1978. Included in the sale was the assets and business of Western Pacific Railroad, Sacramento Northern Railroad, Tidewater Southern Railroad, and non-railroad subsidiaries Standard Realty and Development Corp., Delta Finance Company and the WP Transport trucking company.
April 4, 1979:
The sale of the assets and liabilities (but not the stock) of Western Pacific Railroad to Newrail took effect. On the same day, Newrail changed its name to Western Pacific Railroad, and the previous railroad company controlled by Western Pacific Industries changed its name to OldWestCo. WPI then owned only a railroad company with no assets.
July 24, 1979:
A wreck at Mile Post 868, near Low (MP 866.14) involving WP 3516, 2010, 3067, and 3523, along with caboose 466. The wreck was between two trains; a four-car EMR (Ellerbeck-Marblehead-Rowley) Local, and a set of four locomotives running light. (click here for photos at the WPRRHS web site.) (wreck information from Trainorders.com)
January 23, 1980:
Western Pacific's board of directors announced that they had accepted an offer from Union Pacific Railroad for the control of WP by UP. UP had announced on January 8, 1980, its intention to buy the Western Pacific.
September 15, 1980:
UP and WP filed their request for UP control of WP with the federal ICC. The ICC accepted the application for merger and control on October 15th. Initial plans were for WP to remain indepent and become UP's fourth operating district (along side UP's existing three districts: Eastern, Northwestern, and South-Central).
June 9, 1982:
Robert C. Marquis became president and CEO of WP after R. G. Flannery left to become president and CEO of Missouri Pacific Railroad.
October 20, 1982:
The federal ICC approved the control of WP by UP. The decision had been announced on September 13th.
January 1, 1983:
Union Pacific's purchase and control of Western Pacific became effective. The sale cleared its last legal challenge and was approved by the U. S. Supreme Court on December 22, 1982, the date that is usually given as the date of the UP-WP "merger".
January 11, 1983:
WP's board of directors met to confirm that Western Pacific's status as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad Company.
(See also Western Pacific History, WP Lives)
(All events on former WP trackage and locations after January 1983 are covered as part of the coverage for Union Pacific in Utah. Click here for UP in Utah.)
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