Goodbye, Utah Railway

The low density traffic of the Utah Railway line impressed us so much that we decided to stay just a little bit longer. A good decision, so it seems, because only 10 minutes after we got a Union Pacific train going downhill we got this oil train towards Helper.
Notice the bridge behind the train: it consists of an old flat car.
This was the last Utah Railway train we saw during this trip. Maybe even forever… today it seems that Union Pacific has taken over most of the traffic, rumours are the railroad may even be shut down.

The last one

It always happens when you have decided to leave. It wasn’t any different when we had decided to leave the Price River Canyon behind us and ride off towards Salt Lake City. Only 5 minutes far on the highway we saw another train coming. Fortunately we had a location in mind, so some quick action resulted in the photo below.

Straight to the Great Salt Lake

Up to the next memorable photo moments. After a doughnut stop close to Salt Lake City, we headed towards the Great Salt Lake. The last part of the journey was a more than 20km long road straight through the dry wilderness. We met no living soul on the road and silence was extraordinary.

Water everywhere

The flatness of the Great Salt Lake was as spectacular as the roughness of the landscape we visited only hours before. Between Lakeside and Little Mountain, the railroad runs through the Great Salt Lake. We needed patience to see a train here: we didn’t get a train coming from Salt Lake City, so the picture shows 2 engines that help push a container train over the lake. The enormous scale of the lake became obvious while we waited for this train to disappear behind the horizon.

Salty sunset

Sunset over the Salt Lake was magnificent. Menacing, maybe? When the sun had set, while walking back to the car, my friend stepped on something soft, which turned out to be a snake. Needless to say that all of a sudden we felt the urge to increase our pace 🙂

Go to the next day

Go to the previous day