Golden Spike 150th in Utah - 2019

Sally and I travelled to Utah to catch the aftermath of the Golden Spike Sesquicentennial. The major - and official - event was in Promontory, Utah, of course where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific tracks met during the famous ceremony in which the Golden Spike was driven. By the way, the actual Golden Spike now resides at Stanford University (Leland Stanford being one of the railroad "Robber Barons"). Another major celebration was at Ogden Utah which lies on the transcontinental railway thoroughfare (the tracks through Promontory were abandoned in 1933).

We flew to Salt Lake City and rented a car and drove to Ogden where we spent a couple of nights. We enjoyed seeing the reconditioned Union Pacific steam locomotives 4014 and 844 that UP had brought to Ogden for the Sesquicentennial celebration as well as the Union Station and railway museum.

On Mother's Day, May 12, two days after the anniversary, the UP train including the two steam locomotives and several renovated vintage UP executive railcars, left Ogden to head back to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they are housed. We rose early and headed out to the Union Station to see them steam up the locomotives and watch (and hear) them pull out. We then followed them east to Evanston, Wyoming here we parted ways.

We then took a trip to visit Promontory itself to see the site of the historic meeting of the railways - and to see crews break down from the big celebration three days earlier.

Having filled our quota of things railway, we headed to northern Utah - nearly to Idaho - to spend a couple of days on the lovely Bear Lake.

Finally back to Salt Lake where we caught the west-bound California Zephyr back home.