Western Railroad Discussion > Silver Zone Pass, Nevada Oct.16-17

I recently spent a week in Eastern Nevada exploring different railroad locations.  Silver Zone Pass has been on my must do list for many years and I finally went there to check it out.  I drove in and found a suitable camp site near Clifside Siding and spent the next 43 hours exploring the area. In that time I saw or heard a total of 13 trains: 9 freight (7 west 2 east) and 4 Amtrak.
 
On the ex Western Pacific, the headend of UP 8109 West (upper right) has just negotiated Arnold Loop as it climbs toward Silver Zone Pass, Nevada.  The rear end (lower left) will soon follow.  I first saw this train approaching from the southeast several miles away. It took at least 45 minutes to reach my location.  

Later that afternoon I hiked to the original WP grade over Silver Zone Pass.  Built with a 3% grade, this proved too steep and Arnold Loop was later constructed at the more gentle 1%.  This grade is easily seen when traveling on adjacent I-80, but is very difficult to access.  Once on the grade, I walked about 2 miles and found a suprising number of spikes, tie plates and other railroad related debris.  My map indicated the old right of way is now a buried aqueduct which might explain its good condition.
 
Despite only a handful of trains, most running at night, Silver Zone Pass did not disappoint.  It is a fascinating area full of history and a major transportation corridor.  Interstate 80 is your constant companion. UP offers only a few trains but is worth the wait. If you are at Clifside, you can see a westbound approaching for a long time and see it a second time after it traverses Arnold Loop.  Also, the pass was part of Hastings Cutoff in 1846, which means the Donner Party went this way, and for those interested in aviation history, there is a perfectly intact "concrete arrow" on a nearby mountain top.  These were built as navigation tools in the 1920's for the original transcontinental air mail service.  

Jeff Pell
Lodi, CA

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Nice phots in one of my favorite parts of the world! Did you get a photo of the concrete arrow?

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

I drove by the old ROW many times and thought it was a haul road or something left over from when they did
the I-80 construction because it's way too steep for a railroad. Like your loop shot, nice and sunny, too many
times out there when it's been really cold and windy.

Out 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/22 21:34 by callum_out.

Great shots from an area I know really well.  Thanks!

In case the other Jeff didn't get any arrow photos, here are some I shot a couple years ago.  Ground was too wet for me to get where I needed to go that day so I went to see the arrow, which for the unitiated were built for the original air mail service back in the 1920s, the pilots would fly from arrow to arrow, and each arrow had a beacon light mounted on top of the middle part of the arrow.  There is a fantastic website out there about them at:

https://www.dreamsmithphotos.com/arrow/

The arrow on top of SIlver Zone is interesting in that it has the 90-degree bend in the middle of it, the pointy part of the arrow is perfectly lined up with 80 going across Pilot Valley.  The middle photo of these three is looking southwest across Goshute Valley towards the Pequops, which are the middle mountain ridge in the distance.  The pass to the left is Flowery Lake Pass, also used by the Donner Party and later the Western Pacific, while the pass to the right is Little Lake Pass, which the air mail service used.  In addition to this arrow there is another arrow next to the Shafter townsite and a still standing beacon without an arrow between this one and Shafter, and the foundations of the beacon station in Little Lake Pass is also still present but it too did not have an arrow.  I posted some pictures of the arrow at Shafter in the following thread from a few years ago:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4423207,page=1

Thanks again for posting the pictures, and sorry I didn't run into you out there someplace!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

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Thank you all for your kind replies. I did get a photo of the concrete arrow, but Jeff's pictures and description show it much better. Thank you Jeff for posting those.  Yes, the weather out there can be a challenge, but I was lucky with warm days, cold mornings and gentle winds.  

Geat shots, both of you, thanks for posting some really different stuff, I made a couple sales calls up at Graymont and we'd drive out
from Salt Lake and never see a train. Be up at the mine a half an hour and two Eastbounds would pass, traffic on that line was just
so hit and miss. 

Out 

Thanks for this. I cant count how many times I've passed by on I80 and told myself I should hike in there some day. I even got a daylight ride through there on a many-hours-late Amtrakker, but have never done it on the ground. 

Good stuff, interesting stories from the past.
t4p.

Sure nuff, beacon 50 was at a 90-deg turn
in the airway, close enough

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3701pm.gct00089/?sp=2226&q=elko+aeronautical+chart&r=0.846,0.214,0.135,0.086,0

Guess the pilots liked to stay fairly near ground level.

"Built with a 3% grade, this proved too steep..."

The 3% line was always intended to be temporary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/22 11:38 by timz.

timz Wrote:
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> "Built with a 3% grade, this proved too steep..."
>
> The 3% line was always intended to be temporary.

Thank you for the clarification on the original grade.  I didn't know that and appreciate the information.

Jeff Pell
Lodi, CA

WP had provisions in its construction bonds limiting it to a 1% ruling grade on the main line. They built the 3% line as a matter of expediency. Work on Arnold Loop finally started around the middle of 1913, with the line opened for westbound traffic on 14 December 1913. Eastbound traffic started using the new line on 7 April 1914. WP retained the original line for emergency use or as an alternative route to relieve congestion until finally taken out of service in mid-1925 and scrapped out later that year.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Posted from iPhone

That first photo is awesome Jeff. Have seen trains on Silver Zone a number of times during road trips between California and Utah. But I’ve never gone out there, need to do that one of these years. Dick Ebright used to roam that area before moving away from Utah. Only a few hardy souls make it out there!

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

atsf121 Wrote:
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> That first photo is awesome Jeff. Have seen
> trains on Silver Zone a number of times during
> road trips between California and Utah. But
> I’ve never gone out there, need to do that one
> of these years. Dick Ebright used to roam that
> area before moving away from Utah. Only a few
> hardy souls make it out there!
>
> Nathan
>Thank you for your comments, Nathan.  I looked back over my notes and the train in my photo was the ONLY westbound that day during daylight hours at 11:20am.  There was one empty eastbound coal train at 2:10 pm.  Everything else ran after dark. If you go, take a lawn chair and a book as you'll have a lot of time between trains.  

Jeff Pell
Lodi, CA