Western Railroad Discussion > Watch the helpers cut in at Helper, Utah

I spent the day last Friday around the Helper and Soldier Summit areas in Utah. I was interested in finding out as much as I could about how much business the UP was doing on the west end of the old Rio Grande between Salt Lake City and Helper. Back a few months ago an outbreak of PSR struck here when the Green River Sub between Grand Junction, Colorado  and Helper, Utah was stripped of its through Union Pacific freights and became essentially a dead railroad as far as the UP is concerned. It turns out there is still a little traffic over Soldier Summit, but not much. The daily UP through freights, the MRONY eastbound and the MNYRO westbound have been replaced by a near daily MROHP eastbound and a MHPRO westbound. Both of these run between Helper and Roper yard in Salt Lake.
 
When I arrived at Helper, there was an eastbound coal empty getting ready to go to the Savage coal loadout for a fill-up. I figured I had a few hours before it was back at Helper ready to go west over Soldier Summit, so I took off west myself in search of anything else moving on the hill. I encountered the MROHP just west of summit, turned around and got ahead of it for 3 shots back to Helper. It had 55 cars, mostly covered hoppers full of, I think, frac sand.

1. MROHP at the Hwy 96 crossing near Colton.
2. Twisting through the S curves at west switch Kyune.
3. Entering Helper Yard.

 
9 more shots of the coal train, the  CC4PF9-02, Savage, UT to Stockton, CA.
 
Dick Ebright
Roosevelt, Utah
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/19 08:29 by 2ebright.

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Back at Helper, I hung around until the UP 7826 west arrived with the CC4PF9-02. fresh from loading at Savage and ready to cut in the 4 unit manned, mid train, helpers.

1. Helper crew and road crew loading up. The 4 helpers are cut in right in front of the Depot/Yard Office on the Amtrak boarding area, which provides excellent, safe access to watch the helpers cut in.
2. The loaded train pulls west and the conductor makes the cut about 2/3 of the way back in the train and right at the crossover switch.
3. UP 8757 with the helpers comes west through the crossovers.

 
 
6 more shots following
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/19 17:54 by 2ebright.

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1. Helpers moving west preparing to couple up to the front 2/3 of the train/
2. The train now makes a reverse move back towards the rear half and stops so the conductor can line the crossover switch.
3. Helper set moving very slowly ready to couple up to the rear half.

 
 
3 more shots following
 

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1. Finally the 13,575 ton CC4PF9-02 and UP 7628 are on the move west in a 2x4x2 configuration just above (west) of Castlegate.
2. Through the S curves at west Kyune along side the Price River.
3. Right at Soldier Summit ready to begin the descent to Provo. The train is now without its 4 mid-train helpers, having dropped them at Colton a few miles east of Summit.

 
 
Thanks for looking
Dick Ebright
Roosevelt, Utah
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/19 14:40 by 2ebright.

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Another train to watch for is UP oil load OWFSJ (Oil - Wash,Ut to St James,La.). Seems to be running once or twice a week at present. Goes east via Bond and Denver.

Allen

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/19 14:42 by bradleymckay.

Nice post and photos, Dick.  Does the Utah Railway have any operations at all in Martin/Helper anymore?

 

I'm very surprised to see manned helpers still being used!

Posted from Android

espeefan Wrote:
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> I'm very surprised to see manned helpers still
> being used!
>
> Posted from Android

They're starting to figure out that if you only need the extra hoursepower for a small part of the run it's cheaper to use manned helpers rather then DPU units for the entire run.

Where's the views of the mid train and rear DPU at one of the locations?

Rob

OK Rob, just because I like you, here are the mid train, manned helpers and the rear, not manned helpers. Location is west switch Kyune, Utah.

Dick Ebright

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Great work Dick!

Posted from Android

Nice series of photos and narrative.  Always good to see some human element of railroading and find out more about the operations.
Brian Stevens

Hey, Dick, great shots as usual! No more westbound coal off the North Fork? I really don't know much about other (non-coal) UP traffic out of Grand Junction, but I'd be surprised if there's none -- what are they doing with westbound originating/eastbound terminating cars for GJ? Also, I saw a daylight MNYGJ (or whatever it's called now) the other day that was a monster, as long or longer than the usual coal train. It had not only a rear-end DPU but 2-3 engines of some sort about where they would be for helpers, although they could have been more dead switchers, I was too far away to tell. No idea how often the NY trains run either.
Bruce

Great series of shots! Nice to see the MROHP with a sizeable train instead of light engines!