CyberViewX v5.14.25.Model Code=58.F/W Version=1.16
Chasing the Ghost of SP 21; 29 December 1982
In December 1982, my employer, McClellan AFB in Sacramento, closed for the week between Christmas and New Year.
I decided to spend that time riding Amtrak and the Rio Grande Zephyr to Denver and spending a few days in Denver checking out the rail scene and maybe getting out to Golden to the Colorado Railroad Museum.
Well, the eastbound San Francisco Zephyr was late, so we got into Ogden after the RGZ connecting van had left. I stayed on the SF Zephyr across Wyoming to Denver, where I discovered that Denver was still digging out from a major blizzard, the Oxford Hotel, a block from Union Station, where I'd planned to stay,was closed for renovation and that #5, the westbound SFZ, was 12 hours late due to the weather and would be pulling into Denver Union Station as soon as #6 left.
With no place to stay near the station and not sure where or how expensive another hotel might be, I decided to just take #5 back to Sacramento, knowing that with the train 12 hours late, we would go through some country in daylight that was normally passed at night.
(Funny enough, in 2000 Anne, the girls and I were on the eastbound CZ when it was held in Denver overnight due to a BNSF derailment in Nebraska. So, we got to see the high plains of eastern Colorado and western Nebraska turn into farmland as we went east and the rainfall increased. We also got into Chicago about 5am the next morning, looking and feeling like the opening lines of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl".)
Anyway, on the night of 28 Dec 1982, #5 pulled out of Denver and headed to Wyoming in darkness. After spending the night before in coach, i promptly fell asleep and only awoke, it seems, on final approach into Ogden.
IIRC, the Desert Wind to LA had been held for our train's through cars, but the Pioneer's connecting stub of coach and diner had left on time or close to it the preceding evening. Our Seattle cars would be held at Ogden until the following Zephyr arrived with cars for the Pioneer.
SP 21 was the Ogden-Oakland mail train that left Ogden in the morning, ran in daytime across Nevada, then was overnight from Reno to Oakland. It finished in 1967 when the US Mail was mostly removed from passenger trains.
#5 this day would roughly run on its schedule.
We shed our UP GP40X helper and our LA and Seattle cars in Ogden, then headed west across SP's fill over the Great Salt Lake. I'd been across this fill before in daylight, but it had been early morning going the other way. The original trestle still looked intact in 1982, but I'm not sure if SP was still using it or if all traffic was using the fill.
After crossing the Great Salt Lake, we passed Cobre, Nevada, where the Nevada Northern connected with the SP. There was still a small community there in 1982. Google Maps shows not much left there today. There was a water tank somewhere in the Pequop Mountains.
I have no idea whey I did not take pictures at Elko, or, if the train still made a stop at Carlin, at Carlin. I did get some as we rolled through Palisade Canyon, which are of interest as we will be camping there in a few weeks. The last pictures are at Beowawe, where I photographed the depot between the SP and WP mains and the crew inspecting the diner, which had been setting off hotbox detectors.
It probably got dark after Beowawe. I remember that it was clear with a full moon over Donner and we used Track 1 through the sheds above Donner Lake. After Norden, I got a few hours of shut eye as we descended Donner Pass in the dark.
CyberViewX v5.14.25.Model Code=58.F/W Version=1.16
Chasing the Ghost of SP 21; 29 December 1982
In December 1982, my employer, McClellan AFB in Sacramento, closed for the week between Christmas and New Year.
I decided to spend that time riding Amtrak and the Rio Grande Zephyr to Denver and spending a few days in Denver checking out the rail scene and maybe getting out to Golden to the Colorado Railroad Museum.
Well, the eastbound San Francisco Zephyr was late, so we got into Ogden after the RGZ connecting van had left. I stayed on the SF Zephyr across Wyoming to Denver, where I discovered that Denver was still digging out from a major blizzard, the Oxford Hotel, a block from Union Station, where I'd planned to stay,was closed for renovation and that #5, the westbound SFZ, was 12 hours late due to the weather and would be pulling into Denver Union Station as soon as #6 left.
With no place to stay near the station and not sure where or how expensive another hotel might be, I decided to just take #5 back to Sacramento, knowing that with the train 12 hours late, we would go through some country in daylight that was normally passed at night.
(Funny enough, in 2000 Anne, the girls and I were on the eastbound CZ when it was held in Denver overnight due to a BNSF derailment in Nebraska. So, we got to see the high plains of eastern Colorado and western Nebraska turn into farmland as we went east and the rainfall increased. We also got into Chicago about 5am the next morning, looking and feeling like the opening lines of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl".)
Anyway, on the night of 28 Dec 1982, #5 pulled out of Denver and headed to Wyoming in darkness. After spending the night before in coach, i promptly fell asleep and only awoke, it seems, on final approach into Ogden.
IIRC, the Desert Wind to LA had been held for our train's through cars, but the Pioneer's connecting stub of coach and diner had left on time or close to it the preceding evening. Our Seattle cars would be held at Ogden until the following Zephyr arrived with cars for the Pioneer.
SP 21 was the Ogden-Oakland mail train that left Ogden in the morning, ran in daytime across Nevada, then was overnight from Reno to Oakland. It finished in 1967 when the US Mail was mostly removed from passenger trains.
#5 this day would roughly run on its schedule.
We shed our UP GP40X helper and our LA and Seattle cars in Ogden, then headed west across SP's fill over the Great Salt Lake. I'd been across this fill before in daylight, but it had been early morning going the other way. The original trestle still looked intact in 1982, but I'm not sure if SP was still using it or if all traffic was using the fill.
After crossing the Great Salt Lake, we passed Cobre, Nevada, where the Nevada Northern connected with the SP. There was still a small community there in 1982. Google Maps shows not much left there today. There was a water tank somewhere in the Pequop Mountains.
I have no idea whey I did not take pictures at Elko, or, if the train still made a stop at Carlin, at Carlin. I did get some as we rolled through Palisade Canyon, which are of interest as we will be camping there in a few weeks. The last pictures are at Beowawe, where I photographed the depot between the SP and WP mains and the crew inspecting the diner, which had been setting off hotbox detectors.
It probably got dark after Beowawe. I remember that it was clear with a full moon over Donner and we used Track 1 through the sheds above Donner Lake. After Norden, I got a few hours of shut eye as we descended Donner Pass in the dark.