Great Salt Lake Causeway Raised

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S.P. trains rumble over causeway while crews scramble to raise it.

Deseret News Staff Reporting

(Deseret News, August 25, 1986)

Southern Pacific trains are rumbling over the causeway across the Great Salt Lake even while work crews race to build it higher.

The causeway was reopened Saturday afternoon after being closed 2-1/2 months to repair storm damage. Seventeen miles of track across the lake was damaged. An additional 12 miles between the S.P. work camp and quarry at Lakeside, on the lake's eastern shore, and Hogup Ridge were washed out in storms June 6 and 7.

The first train over the causeway Saturday was a two-car work train carrying building materials to Hogup Ridge for the West Desert pumping project.

Since the washout, S.P. has repaired the damage and the lake has begun its annual drop, caused by increased evaporation and decreased inflow.

Meanwhile, S.P. continues to haul rubble and other fill onto the causeway, building it higher against next spring's lake flooding. "It's still in the process," Deon Slade, Ogden, the railroad's road foreman of engines, said Monday.

"It's about 2-1/2 feet (above the lake level) and it will be about 4 feet." Southern Pacific's goal is to build free-board of 4 feet above the lake by February.

That's when the pumping project should begin, with millions of gallons of lake brine flushed into the West Desert. If all goes well, that should help reduce the lake's flooding — and protect the causeway at the same time.

Jim Drake, S.P. terminal superintendent in Ogden, said Monday that since the causeway reopened Saturday, 22 trains had crossed it, including six Monday morning. Five more were scheduled for later in the day.

"We have reduced speeds out there in the work areas," he said. "As work progresses, we'll be able to increase our track speeds."

Because so many trains have to run to and from Ogden on the east-west route, S.P. is still detouring four per day around the southern part of the lake on Union Pacific rails. These are "time sensitive,", trains that can't be held up as much as those crossing the causeway.

Because of the repair crews, trains detoured around the lake on the UP's tracks can still make better time than those going directly across the causeway. But that should change soon.

As repairs are made and Southern Pacific is able to increase its track speed across the causeway, the four trains will be routed across the lake too. That might happen in 15 to 30 days, Drake said.

Rock fill for the causeway is blasted from limestone quarries at Lakeside and Hogup Ridge. Southern Pacific is digging a major excavation at Hogup Ridge, intended to house the pumping plant.

While some S.P. crews build up the causeway and a motor vehicle access road along it, others are constructing the pumping plant site at Hogup Ridge. Southern Pacific is the prime contractor to construct the pumping site.

The railroad will dig canals for the reservoir's outflow and intake and will construct four railroad bridges over them. West of Hogup, 20 miles of track will be raised so that the rail line across the northern arm of the reservoir can be used.

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