Crude By Rail
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This page was last updated on June 27, 2025.
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Overview
Beginning in 2013, three sites became transloading sites to load crude oil from trucks to rail cars. The oil was being trucked to the transload sites from numerous oil pumping sites in central Utah, and from the Uinta Basin. The three sites are 1) the Savage Terminal (formerly C.V. Spur); 2) the former Wellington Coal Wash Plant; 3) the Wildcat Coal Loadout on Utah Railway.
Savage Terminal (C.V. Spur) Transload -- Savage Coal Terminal (C. V. Spur) coal transloading site was expanded to include crude oil transloading in August 2013.
Wellington Transload -- Price River Terminal (Wellington) Transload -- Wellington site was transferred to Price River Terminal in November 2013; Price River Terminal is a subsidiary of WATCO Companies, which operates several truck-to-rail transload terminals across the U.S., along with owning several shortline railroads, and providing rail switching services at several industrial locations.
Wildcat Loadout -- The Wildcat Coal Loadout, owned by Intermountain Power Agency (loading coal from the Horizon mine), was expanded to include crude oil transloading in July 2013; crude oil transload owned by Associated Energy Services, and the site is known as the AES Oil Loading Terminal. Each truck holds about 280 barrels and each rail car hold between 530 and 650 barrels of crude oil. In July 2013, AES was loading about 2,000 barrels per day, with a capacity of up to 6,000 barrels per day, or 10 rail cars.
The following comes from "Survey Notes" published by the Utah Geological Survey, Volume 47, Number 1, January 2015.
From 2006 to 2013, U.S. annual oil production increased over 48 percent from 1,830 million barrels (bbls) to 2,716 million bbls. Similarly over the same period, Utah’s annual oil production jumped 59 percent from 22 million bbls to 35 million bbls, mainly from the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah. This rapid increase in Uinta Basin oil production has taxed the ability of its typically sole market at Salt Lake City refineries to absorb the extra oil. Another problem is that Uinta Basin crude is “waxy” and solidifies at normal outside temperatures to the consistency of shoe polish, which makes transport via pipeline impossible unless the pipeline is heated and insulated. To find new out-of-state markets for Uinta Basin crude oil, producers there have recently started shipping their product to other states in heated and insulated rail tank cars.
The transport of Uinta Basin crude oil by rail to markets outside Utah started significantly in 2013, when a temporary shut-down of a Salt Lake City refinery briefly caused a local glut of oil. Uinta Basin oil producers such as Berry/Linn Petroleum, Crescent Point Energy, Newfield Exploration, and Ultra Petroleum responded by shipping their crude oil out-of-state in coil-heated and insulated tank cars. Historically, Uinta Basin waxy crude has been captive to the refineries around Salt Lake City, and was sold at a discounted price of about $13 to $17 per bbl less than oil from other areas in the U.S. Recently, the price differential has been high enough that even with the extra rail transportation costs, Utah oil could be shipped to other higher priced U.S. market areas at a profit.
To ship Utah crude oil by rail, six new Utah-based oil transloading terminals have been constructed: (1) Musket Corporation near Helper in June 2010; (2) Newfield Exploration in Ogden in March 2013; (3) and (4) Savage Services in both Salt Lake City and Wellington in August 2013; (5) Crescent Point Energy in Salt Lake City in December 2013; and (6) Price River Terminal in Wellington in December 2013. These new terminals supplement an existing oil terminal built by Chevron Corporation in Salt Lake City in the 1980s. These transloading facilities accept truck shipments and transfer the oil into rail tank cars for transport to out-of-state markets. As of early 2014, these seven oil transloading terminals had a combined capacity of over 50,000 bbls per day, or roughly equivalent to the current Uinta Basin “waxy” crude oil refining capacity near Salt Lake City (total refinery capacity is about 173,000 bbls per day).
Savage Energy Terminal
(CV Spur, south of Wellington)
What today is known as C.V. Spur (originally and briefly known as Castle Valley Spur) was constructed in 1974 by D&RGW for the benefit of the Utah Power & Light, and the American Coal company which was the contract operator of UP&L's coal mines in Emery County. The new loading site was named Acco, for the American Coal Company.
Other coal companies built additional coal loading sites adjacent to the Acco site, which was dormant after the mid 1980s. In 1994, Savage Industries purchased the original Swisher site next to the Acco site, and under the name of Savage Coal Terminal, continues to load coal trains as of mid 2025.
(Read more about the coal loading sites on CV Spur)
August 2013
Savage was approved by state regulators to add the capability to transload crude oil from truck tankers into rail tank cars. In January 2014, the name of the facility was changed from "Savage Coal Terminal" to "Savage Energy Terminal." (Savage news release dated January 7, 2014)
January 9, 2025
The following comes from a Savage Industries press release dated January 9, 2025.
Savage plans to develop a new crude-by-rail transload terminal to connect supply chains for transporting Uinta Basin crude oil from wellheads to refinery markets across North America.
The new terminal, located near Wellington in Carbon County, Utah, will unload Uinta Basin yellow and black wax crude from tanker trucks into two heated tanks, Savage reported. The crude will then be loaded into unit trains of insulated rail cars, via two rail loops, for delivery to end-market destinations.
The Wellington terminal is part of the growing Savage transload network of over 50 transload terminals across North America, and will also be capable of handling other industrial bulk and liquid commodities to support regional growth. Located about a half mile north of the Savage energy terminal in Price, Utah, the new Wellington terminal will be developed within the Utah Inland Port Authority’s Castle Country project area, supporting the state’s objectives for growing strategic infrastructure, enhancing energy access, expanding growth in rural communities and driving sustainable development in Carbon and Emery Counties.
(The new proposed Savage oil transloading site is north of the existing Savage Coal Terminal, along the west side of CV Spur.)
Wellington Transload
The Wellington transload site was built in 1958 as the site of United States Steel Corporation's Wellington coal preparation plant. The plant was located along the D&RGW mainline one and a half miles south of Wellington. The plant blended the coal from U. S. Steel's Sunnyside, Utah, and Somerset, Colorado mines to produce a better quality of coal for coking at the Geneva steel plant, by washing the coal to reduce its ash and sulphur content. The plant was built on a 1,500 acre site and processed all the coal mined in Utah and Colorado by the coal properties of Columbia-Geneva Steel Division, United States Steel Corporation.
The Wellington coal preparation plant was closed in 1983 and the site was reclaimed in 1984. U. S. Steel sold the Wellington coal preparation plant to Kaiser Coal Corporation, along with its coal property at Somerset, Colorado.
(Read more about the Wellington site prior to becoming an oil transload site in 2013.)
Beginning in 2013, the site of the Wellington coal washing plant, using the name Price River terminal, was used as a transloading site to load crude oil from the Uinta Basin from trucks to rail cars.
Wildcat Transload
The following was compiled from documents on file at the Utah Division of Oil gas and Mining.
Operations at the Wildcat coal loadout were ceased by Andalex on 2010. Soon after it was sold to IPA in June 2011, operations resumed. The facility became idle and went into temporary cessation on September 27, 2016.
Operation of the Wildcat coal loadout was transferred to Wild West Equipment & Hauling of Helper in November 2015.
Operation of the Wildcat coal loadout was transferred to Coal Energy Group 2, LLC (of Nevada) on November 9, 2018.
As of May 2022, the oil loading side on the west side of the Wildcat Loadout was busy. The coal side on the east side was not active.
Wildcat Midstream Partners (UTWX)
In 2019, Wildcat Midstream Partners (UTWX) began operating the Wildcat oil transloading facility near Price, Utah, using its own locomotives with the UTWX reporting mark.
In 2021, Utah Railway discontinued service on its line between Martin and Wildcat, at which time UTWX began operating shuttle trains over the five miles of remaining line between Wildcat and the Utah Railway yard at Martin.
February 2019
Wildcat Midstream Partners (UTWX) purchased two GP locomotives from Arizona Eastern (AZER, an affiliate of Genesee & Wyoming Industries, GWI), where they had been used to switch the Freeport-McMoRan copper smelter at Miami, Arizona. The two GP8 locomotives had been replaced by larger more powerful locomotives in their assignment as switchers at Miami for the movement of copper-related rail traffic down the former SP line (sold in 1988) to a connection with Union Pacific at Lordsburg, New Mexico, using trackage rights over UP tracks from Bowie, Arizona, to Lordsburg.
(View a photo from March 2017 of the two locomotives in service at Miami, Arizona.)
UTWX 1529 and 1530, two GP8 locomotives still in Arizona Eastern (GWI corporate) paint, arrived in Utah in early February 2020 (February 5th or 6th), having been moved from Globe, Arizona. Both locomotives were seen at Colton, California, on January 29, 2020, with the routing having been to Lordsburg, New Mexico via AZER, then along UP's Sunset Route west to Colton, then north on UP's former LA&SL to Provo. They had been purchased in February 2019 by Wildcat Midstream Partners for oil transloading at Wildcat on Utah Railway, west of Helper.
Their reporting marks were UTWX 1529 and 1530. The UTWX reporting mark is registered to Wildcat Midstream Partners, LLC, operator of the oil trans-loading facility at the site of the Wildcat coal loadout.
February 14, 2020
The two GP8 locomotives owned by Wildcat Midstream Partners (still painted as Arizona Eastern) were moved by Utah Railway from Provo to Martin, then to the Wildcat loadout on February 14, 2020.
September 14, 2021
Utah Railway received federal Surface Transportation Board approval to discontinue service for the purposes of interstate commerce on its line between Martin and Mohrland. The application was approved and nine miles of the line between Martin and the Gordon Creek bridge (including Wildcat) was leased to Wildcat Midstream Partners "for use as a private industrial side track." The remainder beyond the Gordon Creek bridge, including the bridge itself was removed from service.
In September 2021 Utah Railway discontinued service on its entire line between Martin and Mohrland. The seven-mile portion between Martin and Wildcat, and another two miles beyond was leased to Wildcat Midstream Partners (UTWX) for use as an industrial spur. UTWX then began operating its own shuttle oil trains between Wildcat and Martin.
With its arrival in November 2021, the SD50 being stationed at Wildcat and used to switch the cars.
The two GP8 locomotives were removed from service with the arrival of the SD50, and stored inside the Utah Railway shop at Martin.
November 2021
UTWX 2302 arrived at Martin in November 2021 and was prepared for service. The locomotive had been purchased by Wildcat Midstream in August 2021 from Blacklands Railroad, which had used it at its Black Gold Terminal site in Winfield, Texas. Prior to Blacklands Railroad ownership, the SD50 had been owned by Luminant Energy (as TUGX 23021) and used at its Winfield, Texas, coal-fired power plant (TUGX = Texas Utilities Mining Company). Prior to service in Texas, the locomotive had been in national lease service for Progress Rail, which had purchased it from Norfolk Southern.
July 19, 2023
UP SD60 2237 was seen at Utah Railway's shop at Martin. The locomotive had been purchased from Metro-East Industries (MEI) in East St. Louis, Illinois, which had purchased it from Union Pacific. Although the sale to MEI, and later sale to Wildcat Midstream had apparently taken place in June 2023, with the locomotive being seen at Herington, Kansas, on June 20, 2023 en route to Helper, Utah, UP 2237 wasn't officially retired by Union Pacific until August 21, 2023.
The ex-UP SD60 (UTWX 2237) was purchased as a backup for the SD50 (UTWX 2302). Having two locomotives would allow one of them to be out of service for repairs without affecting the timely movement of oil tank cars.
January 4-5, 2024
UTWX GP8 1529 had its diesel engine and main generator removed, and the remaining cab and frame was removed from the locomotive truck assemblies, then placed on the ground, resting on its fuel tank near the Utah Railway shop at Martin. UTWX 1529 had been in a wreck that had resulted in its front end sheet and steps being replaced by a plain flat sheet.
(Contrary to railfan rumors, UTWX 1529 was *not* part of the January 2023 GWI consent decree settlement with the federal EPA concerning the destruction of non-EPA compliant locomotives still in operation. UTWX had purchased the locomotive from GWI-AZER in February 2019.)
June 25, 2025
The following comes from a Coal Energy Group press release dated June 25, 2025.
The Coal Energy Group wants to expand the Wildcat Loadout Facility near Helper to add tank truck unloading racks, tank car loading systems, vapor combustion, and other facilities for transferring Uinta Basin crude oil.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is reviewing a proposal to expand the Wildcat Loadout Facility near Helper, Utah, where Uinta Basin crude oil is transferred from tank trucks to tank cars.
If approved, Coal Energy Group 2, will reconfigure the facility to accommodate new infrastructure within the current 270-acre project area. The proposal includes adding tank truck unloading racks, a tank farm, rail car loading systems, a vapor combustion unit, a motor control unit, and related facilities designed to increase transloading capacity
Wildcat Midstream Partners Locomotives
As of late 2023, there were four locomotives in use by Wildcat Midstream Partners.
- UTWX 1529 (GP8), since February 2020 (out of service since early 2022)
- UTWX 1530 (GP8), since February 2020
- UTWX 2302 (SD50), since December 2021
- UTWX 2237 (SD60), since July 2023
The two GP8 locomotives were used as switchers at Wildcat. The full trains of empty and loaded tank cars were moved by Utah Railway between Wildcat and Martin, sometimes using BNSF locomotives.
The SD50 and SD60 locomotives are being used to move the loaded and empty tanks cars in short shuttle trains between Wildcat and Utah Railway's yard at Martin, a distance of five miles.
Known histories of the UTWX GP8 locomotives:
UTWX 1529 (EMD 20806, Jan 1956) was built as Illinois Central GP9 9168; rebuilt by Paducah shops as GP8, completed as IC/ICG 7700, May 1974; to Arkansas Midland (AKMD) 700 before 1993; to Arizona Eastern (AZER) 1529 before 2016; to Wildcat Midstream (UTWX) 1529 in February 2019.
-- IC 9168 (GP9) > IC/ICG 7700 (GP8) > AKMD 700 (GP8) > AZER 1529 (GP8) > UTWX 1529 (GP8)
UTWX 1530 (EMD 17726, Apr 1953) was built as Illinois Central GP7 8911; rebuilt to by Paducah shops as GP8, completed as IC/ICG 7726, February 1977; to Arkansas Midland (AKMD) 726 before 1993; to Arizona Eastern (AZER) 1530 before 2016; to Wildcat Midstream (UTWX) 1530 in February 2019.
-- IC/ICG 8911 (GP7) > IC/ICG 7726(GP8) > AKMD 726(GP8) > AZER 1530(GP8) > UTWX 1530 (GP8)
Known history for the UTWX SD50 locomotive.
UTWX 2302 (SD50; EMD 857080-18; February 1986) was built as ConRail (CR) 6822; to Norfolk Southern (NS) 5470; lease expired in 2001; to National Railway Equipment (NREX) 5470 (before Feb 2003); to Progress Rail (PRLX) 5470 (before Oct 2008); to PRLX 23021 (before Feb 2009); to Texas Utilities Mining (TUGX) 23021, in August 2009; to UTWX 2302 in August 2021.
-- CR 6822 > NS 5470 > PRLX 5470 > PRLX 23021 > TUGX 23021 > UTWX 2302
Known history for the UTWX SD60 locomotive.
UTWX 2237 (SD60; EMD 876030-23; June 1988) was built as Union Pacific 6082; to UP 2237 on February 9, 2001; sold to Metro-East Industries (MEI) on June 11, 2023; officially retired by UP on August 21, 2023; sold to Wildcat Midstream Partners (UTWX)
-- UP 6082 > UP 2237 > UTWX 2237
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