Western Railroad Discussion > Interesting afternoon on the Shafter Sub (Nevada)

My job from time to time takes me out along one or both of the railroad lines east of Wells, either the old SP around the north end of the Pequop Mountains or the old WP through them. Yesterday (21 November) it was the old WP. When I first landed in this part of the country, this was a much busier railroad, but traffic has become sparse over the last eight to ten years or so as most transcontinental traffic has been diverted to the old SP mainline to the north. The only semi-dependable train in daylight hours has been the westbound Roper to Roseville manifest, and even it has become unpredictable in the last year or so. The line also handles the nocturnal Amtraks, BNSF trackage rights trains, and westbound loaded grain and coal trains, as almost all of the corresponding eastbound empties seem to go by the old SP east of Wells. There are some days I'm at least within site of the old WP for the majority of daylight hours and don't see anything moving.

Yesterday morning I headed out through Tobar and beyond. UP is doing a lot of culvert and other drainage work, in all likelihood still cleaning up some after the floods from this past January that washed out the line in a few places. I saw one lone locomotive idling in the east end of the Ruby siding, but didn't think anything of it, at least immediately. Later in the day, as I was climbing towards Flowery Lake pass from the southeast, I caught sight of an eastbound light engine movement coming through Ventosa on the floor of Independence Valley and decided the east portal of Flowery Lake tunnel suddenly looked like a good place for a lunch break, so I headed over the top of the pass and settled down with my lunchbox, only to become immediately aware of a westbound coal train coming up from Goshute Valley.

This will be a somewhat lengthy post, so forgive me in advance. This first set is looking west through the 5,676-foot long bore of the Flowery Lake Tunnel, aka WP Tunnel #47. The next two are of the westbound coal loads as they round the last corner and head into the tunnel.

To be continued.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/17 11:04 by JDLX.

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Three more pictures of the westbound coal loads, two of the lead power entering the bore of Flowery Lake tunnel, and then the DPU on the rear of the train.

To be continued.

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The DPU on the rear of the coal train slipping into the tunnel. Amazing how quickly the sound disappears. The headlight quickly became lost in the smoke in the bore, and it took several minutes for enough to dissipate for the western portal to become again visible. Compare the last picture with the first one of the thread.

To be continued.

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I'd last seen that eastbound light engine movement as it approached the siding at Spruce, and figured it must have gone into the hole there for a meet. I ate my lunch while I waited, and sure enough about fifteen or so minutes after the coal train vanished I heard the light power move blowing for the dirt grade crossing at the old Hogan/Jasper station site not far out the western bore of the tunnel. This first shot was the one I really wanted, and one I've been wanting to try to get for some time now, but also a shot that has become difficult due to the nearly nonexistent eastbound traffic on this line. I missed catching the power as it popped out of the mouth of the tunnel, but did get a going away shot as it started the descent into Goshute Valley. One of these units had been the one sitting at Ruby earlier in the morning, the other one probably came out of Elko.

To be continued.

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After the light power departed east I followed it down into Goshute Valley. I had some things to do on my way down, and thus did not get in the vicinity of Shafter for about an hour. The destination of that power move became clear as I approached Shafter, apparently sometime earlier UP had requisitioned the power off another westbound coal train, leaving it along with its DPU unit sitting on the mainline. I have no idea how long it had been sitting there. A UP service truck and a crew shuttle met the light power at the train, and they were in the process of getting everything hooked up and set up. As things turned out, I arrived from the west at the same time the westbound Roper to Roseville came in from the east, and as the coal train was sitting on the main the Roper passed it on the siding.

To be continued.

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Thanks for posting

Three more of the Roper to Roseville accelerating out of the siding and then heading west. The Norfolk Southern until is an interesting sight in Nevada...

To be continued.

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Shafter is also the location where the Nevada Northern once crossed the WP main line on its way north to the interchange with the SP at Cobre. UP removed the diamond shortly after the last Nevada Northern freight came north from Ely in 1983, and though the old NN north of Shafter is still mostly intact it has not seen a train since then. BHP Nevada Rail did operate the old NN south of Shafter from around 1995-1999, when low copper prices caused them to shut down. When the mines reopened again a few years later, they ended up trucking the ore from Ely to a reload at Wendover, which continues today. In the meantime, the Nevada Northern museum, the city of Ely, and White Pine County gained title to the old NN mainline, and a few years ago they reached an agreement with S&S Shortline Leasing, now part of the Mike Williams Group/Midwest Pacific Rail Net & Logistics empire. S&S cleared the brush and did a small amount of trackwork on the line from Shafter south to Currie, where a paved over crossing of Highway 93 presently severs the line. S&S has only ever used the line for car storage, there were a large number of covered hoppers on the line back around 2010, then nothing for a few years, then varying numbers of covered hoppers and tank cars since the fall of 2013. Late last year and earlier this year there were at least a couple hundred cars stored at Shafter, but the numbers have been dwindling all year and there are now only about forty covered hoppers left, about half in the old Shafter yard and another half on the mainline a mile or two to the south. S&S initially used this 45-tonner of various heritage, including Port of Tillamook Bay, Oregon Pacific, Chelatchie Prairie, and Longview, Portland & Northern. It's been a few years since it has moved, they are using a rubber tired loader with a coupler installed on one end to move cars around as needed. Interesting that the loader still has a City of Alturas (California) sticker on it. The little diesel has been hidden behind cars the last couple years, with most of them gone it suddenly looks like a real train again...

Also in Shafter is another piece of fascinating transportation history, one of the few remaining intact concrete arrows from the old air mail service. One of the original air mail routes passed right over Shafter, and in those pioneering days of aviation the pilots flew from arrow to arrow. These arrows also had a beacon tower and generating shed mounted on them. This was a manned station when active. There's another concrete arrow on top of Silver Zone pass, an intact beacon without an arrow in the same neighborhood, and foundations of another beacon site in the Pequops. For those with an interest in this fascinating bit of history, I'd recommend the following site:

http://www.dreamsmithphotos.com/arrow/

To be continued.

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Absolutely incredible series and exquisite lighting!

Outstanding!

Quick question: How come WP never constucted a concrete portal?
I think the other end has one.

My duties then took me south and east from Shafter for a ways. The first view is the new power for the coal train with the relatively new Long Canyon Mine tearing a gash into the Pequops in the distance. As I continued south down the valley I paused long enough to take a couple very long shots of the Roper to Roseville as it climbed up through Sage siding and headed for the pass.

To be continued.

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Last one of the set. I was south of Shafter for something over an hour, and the coal train was still in town when I came back through the old townsite. I paused at the crossing long enough to get a shot of the train, then started on the road out to the Interstate as I still had a long drive back to Elko ahead of me. The train whistled off and started moving right after I passed the head end, and I stopped to get a couple pictures of the DPU unit on the rear end as it passed me, then one more time for another long shot across the valley as it climbed towards Flowery Lake pass in the last rays of daylight- note the signal on the valley floor (neighborhood of the old Proctor station site) behind the train is very visible, with the red and green signals at Sage just visible on the hillside above.

Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed this, and have a very Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

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Addendum...in response to the question raised on the portals. Yes, the western end of the tunnel does have a concrete portal, here's another westbound Roper to Roseville exiting the tunnel a couple years ago. As for why the east end is not similarly concreted, I doubt there is a need for it. Remember the Pequops, like all mountain ranges between Salt Lake and Reno, are fault block mountains, created by entire blocks of the earth's crust rotating upwards along north-south trending fault lines. It's why almost all of these mountain ranges have a much more gradual ascent up one side and a steep drop off on the other. The second image is one I found with a quick search for fault block mountains, and the last photo is a profile of Flowery Lake Pass in Google Earth, looking north....going west to east (left to right), note the more gradual rise coming up from Independence Valley as compared to the much more abrupt drop off into Goshute Valley. When you compare the profile shot to the more basic model above it, the eastern end of the tunnel is boring immediately into the limestone bedrock in the face of the scarp, while the western end emerges in what is otherwise unconsolidated soil and highly weathered bedrock on the face of the horst. Hence, the western end needs the additional support of the concrete portal while the east end does not.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

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Thanks for answering my query. Bravo!

Thanks Jeff, as one who spent some time up around these locations in the 1990's, filming freights and UP Steam, I find your post very interesting! Plus I used to look for, and find broken pieces of railroad dinner china here and there along the sides of the tracks, guess they used to think this was a good area to toss out the chipped plates and cups, etc. I think one can still find remnants of coal cinders near the summits also.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Excellent series of photos and information. This is an area I usually bypass on the way to somewhere else so you taught me a lot. Thank you. - Tony Johnson

Methinks Jeff Moore is a geologist. Absolutely excellent post, Jeff.

Dick Ebright
Roosevelt, Utah

Great post! Don't think I've seen photos of either tunnel bore before.


Allen

Thanks to all...and Dick, I am not a geologist by training or nature, my field starts at the soil and moves up from there. However, I obviously have a strong interest in the subject, especially how it plays into landforms and natural history and what can and will grow where and things of that nature.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

If only this route was busier...it's an absolutely stunning area!