| By: | Rodney J. Sorensen |
| Dates: | 7/15/2003 - 7/4/2005 |
| Album Info: | This album contains photographs of Union Pacific motive power taken in and around the Ogden, Utah . . . Union Pacific Yard facility and complex.
Ogden, Utah . . . traditional crossroads of the West. From its early beginnings in 1869 as the assigned junction point between the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, which later became the beloved Southern Pacific, this has been one of the most important and busy railroad junctions in the nation. Once housing shops, roundhouses and a turntable, made possible with plenty of water from the nearby Weber River. Ice houses and cattle pens to serve the west coast with meat, produce and move hogs east to Chicago, once filled a huge yard.
Times have changed and most of the forgoing if not all, is gone . . . a footnote in history for the most part, but the UP Overland Route still passes through on its way to California and points west. Containers out number box cars ten to one, perhaps by more, but the traffic and trains still remain. Crews get changed here, a few trains are made up here, traffic is routed to the ports of the Northwest from here. Grain in covered hoppers a plenty, seem to self multiply in the yard(s). To alleviate its tax burden, the Union Pacific is tearing down any and all buildings that it does not have to have. The old Southern Pacific switch engine building was razed in just the past few months . . . and time, and supposed progress continues on.
What will happen to Ogden and the yard here in the future, no one can tell. But it is safe to say that trains will leave the yard for the trip across the Great Salt Lake, head through Pocatello with grain and chemicals towards the big Northwest ports, or move south to Los Angels & Long Beach via Las Vegas. The sound of the train, be that a steam whistle or a diesel with a horn . . . will continue to resound in Ogden area for many lifetimes yet to come. We hope . . . |
