Lots of wire, but where are the electrics? . . .
June 10, 1981: We spent the first half of this day checking out Utah's biggest hole. Actually, the largest Open Pit copper mine in the world, Kennecott Utah Copper's massive Bingham Canyon operation. Statistics are so large as to be meaningless, but for those who need to "know it all," check out Don Strack's excellent history of the place. Since the 1920s, rail haulage of both copper ore and its overburden was the domain of electric locomotives, but by 1981 when we visited, dieselization was rapidly taking hold. Most of the operations in the pit were dieselized with "vista cab" EMD GP39-2's, and the "low line" haulage railroad between the ore yard at Copperton and the smelters at Magna had been dieselized as well with EMD's standard mainline heavy freight locomotive of the time, the SD40-2. Really unfortunate, for the old "Magna Motors" that shuttled around the clock in pairs since the railroad was built in the late 1940s were really a sight to see. We stopped off at the visitor's center overlook and photographed mine operations for a bit. The maze of electric wires all over the place in front of us made getting a clean shot difficult.
SD40-2's on the ore haulage approach Copperton yard. . .
After photographing a deadline of stored electric locomotives above the Dry Fork shops in Copperton, we drove a few miles out of town to photograph a broadside view of SD40-2's 105/103 on a trainload of empties bound for Copperton. . . this scene today is dominated by a huge slurry concentrating plant, part of the pipeline/conveyor belt infrastructure that totally replaced the rail operating in the late 1990s. Soon after arriving in Copperton, the locomoitves ran around to the rear of their train, grabbed their caboose, and coupled it to their outbound train. We trespassed just a wee little bit to take roster photos of 105/103, then stuck around as they awaited the car knocker's release in the yard, the towering mountain of overburden tailings in the background. Amazingly, we weren't thrown out. At the time, Kennecott was operating for than 25 loaded trains a day to the smelter complex.
The 103/105 prepare to leave with a loaded train. . .
Roster view of the 105: We weren't thrown out!
While the pit and mainline haulage operations were freshly dieselized, rail operations at the Magna smelter complex had been for a long while. . . long enough for exotics like Alcos and Baldwins to have been built new for the operation. Near a handy highway in Magna, a worse-for-wear RS3, No. 3 sat waiting for us to trespass once more to photograph it. No problem with frowning workers here--the 3 spot was a remote control locomotive, but it didn't look to be in operating condition on the day we encountered it. Turns out, No. 3 was a bit of a celebrity, repainted into a red, white and blue scheme for the 1976 Bicentennial celebration. It must've been painted fairly quickly afterwards, as its standard green and yellow paint looked like shit. The 3, by the way, is preserved at the Feather River Rail society in Portola, California.
Looks like hell, but it's still an Alco RS3!. . .
The afternoon was spent visiting Keith's Hobby House on the near south side of downtown, along with Douglas Hobbies Salt Lake's only true hobby shops. A great memory of my years living as a kid in Salt Lake was the magic one felt walking down the stairs into the nicely finished basement model railroad department. Keith really had a great shop--lots of kits, a PFM sound system set up for demonstration, a full repair shop, and a wonderful brass case. And all the magazines that one could wish for. . . it's safe to say that Keith's is one reason I became a railfan!
It was getting late, and we had miles to go: eastward we went past Park City (back then just a run-down ghost town) to Echo Canyon and the Union Pacific mainline. We gave UP a couple of hours to present us with all the trains we could handle, but Echo Canyon was unusually quiet. We only saw one train, a westbound in cloudy light with Western Pacific power behind the leading UP SD40-2. So inspired, we headed east, bound for South Pass, Wyoming, a campground under the stars, and a morning encounter--we hoped--with US Steel's South Pass ore-hauling railroad and its matched set of F-units.
The afternoon was spent visiting Keith's Hobby House on the near south side of downtown, along with Douglas Hobbies Salt Lake's only true hobby shops. A great memory of my years living as a kid in Salt Lake was the magic one felt walking down the stairs into the nicely finished basement model railroad department. Keith really had a great shop--lots of kits, a PFM sound system set up for demonstration, a full repair shop, and a wonderful brass case. And all the magazines that one could wish for. . . it's safe to say that Keith's is one reason I became a railfan!
It was getting late, and we had miles to go: eastward we went past Park City (back then just a run-down ghost town) to Echo Canyon and the Union Pacific mainline. We gave UP a couple of hours to present us with all the trains we could handle, but Echo Canyon was unusually quiet. We only saw one train, a westbound in cloudy light with Western Pacific power behind the leading UP SD40-2. So inspired, we headed east, bound for South Pass, Wyoming, a campground under the stars, and a morning encounter--we hoped--with US Steel's South Pass ore-hauling railroad and its matched set of F-units.
Skunked by clouds with our only train: UP in Echo Canyon. . .
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