Uintah Railway

Twenty-two miles west of Grand Junction, Colorado, was the starting point of a very strange and unique railroad; one of the few narrow gauge lines in the west, and one of the most difficult to build and operate.

In order to develop the vast gilsonite deposits on the former Uncompahgre Indian Reservation in northeastern Uinta Basin, the General Asphalt Company, usually referred to as the Barber Asphalt Company, began a survey in the spring of 1903 for a narrow gauge railway line which would extend from a point just west of Crevasse Station on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad that followed the Colorado River from Grand Junction westward into Utah.

By the fall of 1903 it was determined that a railroad could be successfully established and operated along the survey line, which took a tortuous course over the Book Cliff Mountains, stretching 54.64 miles from Mack, Colorado, to Dragon, Utah. The survey was followed by a wagon road which was soon transformed into a track bed. A corporation known as the Uintah Railway Company was formed on November 4, 1903, to construct and operate the fabulous railroad, then in the beginning stages of construction. Rails, some ties and the initial rolling stock was purchased from an abandoned line of the D. & R. G. Railroad Company at a reasonable price. The cost of this venture into Dragon, Utah, was $32,028 per mile, or approximately $1,750,000 over all.

One needed only to travel this railroad to understand why the cost of construction and operation was so high. There were sixty-five degree curves and long stretches of grade above five percent, running seven and one-half percent for five miles on the south side of Baxter Pass, and seventy-six degree curves in many places. In one area twenty-four miles of track were laid to travel a six-mile distance, and on the southern slope the railroad climbed 2,000 feet in elevation.

In the spring of 1903 William A. Banks of Vernal, Utah, with a crew of surveyors directed by Frank Baxter, drove the first stake on top of 8,437 foot Baxter Pass, named in honor of Frank Baxter. From there it was an abrupt fall of 4,000 feet to the arid wastelands below which stretched across the distance of many miles to the D. & R. G. W.'s line at Mack, Colorado. Some engineers argued that a tunnel through the mountains was the most practical route, but after much consideration it was decided to lay the track over the top of the mountains. With this decision made, dynamite, hand shovels, scrapers, axes, saws and pile drivers were immediately put to work. The principal tool of these crews was the horse-drawn scraper. Several bridge building crews, under the supervision of a Mr. Lawrence and Hyrum Sutton, were put to work constructing wooden bridges. Thirty-six bridges were required in a distance of about twenty-eight miles. For driving the piles, a one-half ton hammer was raised between guide rails to a height of twenty-three feet by a team of horses which drew a cable through a system of pulleys. [p.181] At the top of the guides the hammer was tripped, allowing it to fall freely on the pile. A sawmill was established on the north slope of Baxter Pass, which furnished all the timber needed for the construction of the railroad. Track crews were employed to install the ties and rails. The line was a three-foot gauge with rails weighing sixty pounds to the linear yard.

The track was completed in September of 1904, and in October the first engine, a Baldwin, pulled into Dragon, Utah, having traversed the entire line from Mack, Colorado. A mile long spur was run from Dragon, southwestward up Dragon Canyon to Dragon Camp and Black Dragon Mine. Gilsonite ore which had been stockpiled for so long was soon moving over the rail line to the main line of the D. & R. G. W. Prior to the completion of this line, the ore had to be hauled by four, six and eight horse teams, which was a slow, expensive operation.

To supply the water for construction, an earth fill dam was built, located five miles down the north slope from Baxter Pass. This lake was named Lake McAndrews after the Uintah Railway's superintendent, John McAndrews. A storage tank with spout for filling engine boilers was erected at a siding known as Wendella, just below the lake. South bound trains stopped there for water before beginning the ascent up the five percent grade to Baxter Pass. Culinary water was obtained along the way from springs at Columbine, which was also on the north slope near the summit. There was a flat green meadow at this place where picnics and celebrations were sometimes held.

The coal used to operate the offices and shops and to supply the ever consuming engines was obtained from the Gilson Asphaltum Company's own 480-acre tract of coal land in Garfield County, Colorado, called Carbonera. On the south side and at the foot of the Book Cliff Mountains, the maintenance shops and round houses were located at a place called Atchee, to honor the Ute Indian chief by that name. This was the major station between Mack, Colorado, and Dragon, Utah. Also there were sidings at Shale, Baxter, on top of the pass; Sewall, Wendella and at Urado, situated on the Utah Colorado line. Traveling from Dragon to Mack, then, the major sidings or stations were Urado, Sewall, Wendella, Columbine, Baxter, Shale, Atchee and then concluding with a rather straight twenty-eight mile stretch into Mack.

For the comfort of their patrons, the Uintah Railway Company constructed twenty-room hotels at Mack and Dragon. By the end of 1905 wagon roads had been built to Vernal and Fort Duchesne, Utah, from Dragon. Over these roads freight and stage lines were operated which made connections with the Dragon railhead on routine schedules. Also a mail and parcel post contract was secured for Vernal, and most towns on the former Uintah Indian Reservation. Many strange and interesting items were shipped by parcel post over this railroad, since in effect it was a subsidized mode of shipment. [p.182] Thirty thousand pounds of cement came to Vernal, Utah, by parcel post in 1914. Thirty-four hundred pounds of copper ore were shipped out to the Garfield refinery, and twelve thousand eggs from the Acorn Mercantile in Vernal to Grand Junction, Colorado. But most amazing of all was the parcel post shipment of bricks into Vernal for the purpose of building the Bank of Vernal. Each brick was wrapped separately, which so tied up the mail service that the federal government had to enact laws against such abuses of the postal service.

In 1911 the company extended its railroad ten and one-half miles to the northwest where the new terminal town of Watson sprang up, and from which a railway spur was extended three miles southward to the Rainbow Mine, and westward one-half mile to China Wall Mine. The people of Vernal, to the north, were eager for the railroad to be built into their town, but to the present time, 1966, no line has yet been constructed.

To handle their brisk trade in 1912, the company operated eleven single expansion engines, twenty-seven flat cars, twenty-four coal cars, eighteen boxcars, ten stock cars. At the peak of operations the railroad owned six Shays, two Mallets, two big Baldwin-Mallets, two side rods, and two saddle tank engines, plus two passenger coaches, three sleepers, twelve livestock cars, thirty boxcars and sixty flat cars. Also there were five tank cars, two first class coaches and two sleeping cars. Three motor service cars which looked very much like overgrown automobiles on railroad wheels were added to the company's fleet in 1915. The number of cars changed very little over the years, ranging in capacity from fifteen to twenty-five tons. Flat cars capable of the heaviest loads, twenty ton or more, were only loaded with an average of ten tons because of the steep grades and sharp curves.

In 1926 the Uintah Railway acquired an engine which was capable of performing the work of three Shays. The new narrow gauge monster was a Mallet, especially built by the Baldwin Company The Baldwin-Mallet was reputed to be the largest engine built for narrow gauge roads; therefore, the curves on the line had to be reduced to sixty-five degrees or less. These new locomotives were of the 2-6-6-2 type, and each had a tractive force of 42,100 pounds. Before the Baldwin-Mallet engine arrived, Shay engines pulled most of the freight, and a small Mallet toiled with a single passenger coach over the rugged Book Cliffs. The average number of loaded cars per train mile was five. Two or three empty cars were usually pulled, but the steep grades and sharp curves prohibited loading them. Even with a short freight train of seven cars and a sixty-ton pay load, two and sometimes three engines were used to make the tortuous pull up the ascending grade and to brake the load down the descending grade. Thousands of head of sheep and cattle were shipped by rail each year to and from Colorado and Utah. Prodders were employed to prevent the animals from crowding to the lower end of the cars and crushing one another to death. Hundreds of thousands of [p.183] tons of gilsonite were shipped out over this unique railroad as well as millions of tons of wool, freight of all kinds, express, parcel post and mail and thousands of passengers. Many of the oil drilling rigs at the Rangely, Colorado, oil fields were shipped in; also the eighty-ton mill and power plant for Vernal Milling and Light Company of Vernal, Utah.

It is little wonder that rates were high on this railroad. The company had expended about $1,750,000 in building and initiating operations on the railway and paralleling it with telephone and telegraph lines between Mack, Colorado, and Dragon, Utah, and another $50,000 for an extension of the system to Watson, Utah. In 1908 freight charges from Dragon, Utah, to New York City were $22.35 per ton, of which $10.00 was spent for the haul from Dragon to Mack. A one way passenger ticket for the trip between Mack and Dragon was $6.50. The passenger fare and freight charges from Mack to Vernal were $20.00 per ton for freight and $13.00 for a single passenger. Express charges were three and one-half cents per pound, or about $10.00 per ton. In 1907 the freight rates were reduced to $8.00 per ton for the American Asphalt Association, who had secured a hearing in Denver, Colorado, with the Interstate Commerce Commission. A similar demand for reduction of gilsonite freight charges was made by the Utah Gilsonite Company in 1924.

Each engine carried sand boxes with releasing controls in the cab. The engineer could release a small stream of sand just ahead of the drivers to provide traction when the tracks were made slippery by rain and snow. Some of the engineers were inexperienced and used all the sand before they arrived at the steepest grades, and runaway trains were not unusual between Baxter Pass and Atchee, or the pass and Wendella. Bridges were often washed out by the floods caused by heavy rain storms. In August 1909 a storm damaged the tracks at Davis, and traffic was held up for ten days. Several persons were killed over the period of years that the train was operated under these trying conditions, but considering it all there were very few accidental deaths. Landslides caused by rain and melting snow were very disruptive to freight and passenger service. One such slide cut off transportation service for nearly two months in June of 1929.

The greatest problem to the administrative officials which caused more accidents and required expensive maintenance was an unpredictable element of nature--snow. It fell deeply and almost daily on Baxter Pass during the months of December, January and February. It was not unusual for as many as one hundred men from Dragon, Mack and Atchee to be employed shoveling snow by hand on Baxter Pass after a slide, or a high wind which had drifted the snow to unbelievable heights, or just a heavy snow fall. In some of the cuts it was necessary for the men who were using hand scoops to relay the snow up to as many as three men to move it over the top and off the tracks. A snow plow was sometimes fastened to the front of an engine which was backed by two more engines, the [p.184] plow tilted so as to drive the snow to the canyon side and clear the track which lay outside the earth cuts. In January 1907 a snowstorm blocked the pass with twenty-five foot high drifts, stalling a passenger coach. Two engines were attached, but still the train remained snowbound on the tracks three more days. The passengers were Captain Cooley, manager of the rail company; train employees and two drummers from Provo, Utah, who all enjoyed the experience.

In spite of all its difficulties, the Uintah Railway Company was prosperous during its thirty-four years of service. It was said in 1929 that "this railroad has a reputation of being the best paying line for its length in the country," and in that year the net profit amounted to $33,000.

The development of hard surfaced highways into the Uinta Basin, and the Gilsonite Asphaltum Company's shift of operations from the Rainbow to the Bonanza Mines in 1935 spelled the doom of the colorful Uintah Railway Company. Business slowed in 1936, and the company petitioned for the right to withdraw from business in 1938. In 1939 the tracks were torn up, the towns of Watson and Dragon became ghost towns overnight, and the Uintah Railway Company, which had constructed the only railroad ever to enter the Uinta Basin, was dissolved. Today the track bed serves, during good weather, as a truck road from Bonanza to Mack. It is also followed generally by the gilsonite-slurry pipeline from Bonanza to the American Gilsonite's $16,000,000 refinery at Gilsonite, Colorado, near Grand Junction. Representatives of the Interstate Commerce Commission who visited the property in July 1924 pronounced it the most difficult operating proposition they had ever seen. So while the engineers proved it possible to build and operate a railroad over the Book Cliff Mountains, they never proved it could be easy. -- Oral W. Richins and Hilda S. Morgan, from A History of the Gilsonite Industry, a thesis written by Newell C. Remington