Western Railroad Discussion > Railroading in a Pokey Kinda Way

Laying at the crossroads of the one time Mormon built narrow gauge Utah & Northern Railway and the northwest bound Oregon Short Line, Pocatello, often called "Pokey" is deeply tied with the railroad. While the OSL built it's main shops many miles to the west at Shoshone, the fallacy of that soon became apparent. So after the Utah & Northern was standard gauged on July 25th, 1887, the new shops were built in Pocatello forever cementing it's place as the commerce hub of eastern Idaho. Eventually more massive locomotive shops, car shops, PFE reefer icing facilities and even a hump yard employed the majority of the city's employees. In recent decades UP has pulled back closing most of those facilities making Pocatello just a servicing point for mainline and local trains, and a classification yard just for the local traffic in Southern Idaho and the Montana Branch. The City still takes great Pride in it's railroad heritage.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Next to the UP Terminal building is the mainline fuel racks to service the through trains. Back in June 2023 several BNSF trains a day were detouring over the UP due to the derailment that wiped out the MRL bridge over the Yellowstone River.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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The animated Greyhound sign on the Art Deco Bus Depot is well worth witnessing at night. The Bus Depot is in front of the UP Depot and across the street from the Union Taproom.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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The yards stretch the length of the city and then some. Trying to figure out exactly where a train will land can be a bit of a challenge. They might go into the east or west yard, or be serviced at the fuel racks. Even the Montana Branch from the north has two routes into the city, and trains can use either route depending on where the congestion is. To the west of the city where the mainlines climb out of the Portneuf River Valley and turn southwest to run across the vast expanse of the Snake River Valley, is the Fertilizer minerals plant of the JR Simplot Corp. They have their own switch locomotives, but access is limited.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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The Montana Branch generates a lot of business in the upper Snake River Valley with UP still operating the network of branchlines west of Blackfoot including the line to the Idaho National Labs nuclear waste disposal site, probably the only reason they haven't sold those branchlines to the Eastern Idaho Railroad. the EIRR operates branchlines north of Idaho Falls. UP sorts the cars for these branchlines at Idaho Falls and until recently had operated a daily turn between Idaho Falls and Pokey, the LCT-47 local. Apparently the MDIPC (Manifest Dillon-Pocatello) train is now handling the work three days a week with the LCT-47 running on Sunday only. LCT-47 was a nice day time turn and I caught it at Tyhee north of Pocatello where a old wood boxcar still sits next to the siding. This was a standard gauge car and at one time had a coat of silver over it's boxcar red, but most of the paint is now gone.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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On the south end of Pocatello at Ross Park next to the yard are three pieces of historical equipment. UP 2-8-2 #2005, DDA40X #6901 and OSL Harriman Caboose #5784. The DDA40X is currently undergoing a repainting effort. 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Interesting that UP no longer runs a daily (mostly) turn between Pocatello and Idaho Falls (except for Sundays).  I guess having an often 80-100 car local daily wasn't "monster" enough, so now consolidate it with a tri-weekly through train.  UP sure does its best at "lowering the bar" for customer service!  At a time, not too long ago, UP worked hard to give the large amounts of perishable business out of southern Idaho good service - obviously those days are gone.

Pocatello was UP's first hump yard and site of the "original" UP (prior to the MoPac-WP merger) system major car shop.  All of that is gone now; I think it was the early 2000's when UP closed the hump because rebuilding wouldn't be cost effective (this was before UP's big PSR close hump yards crusade).  Like many of UP's manlines, the railroad in Pocatello is now only a shadow of its former self....

Nice photos Ted.  Looks like they have a hard time with their paint down there   Here's another steam locomotive with all it's glass items broken out.  It would be nice if somebody could come up with a decent replacement less breakable headlight lens and reflector for all the display engines around the country.  Even if they were made out of Acrylic plastic.  They look awful without that little bit of sparkle that they used to have.  That engine has an unusual set of class lamps too.  Did UP use anything like those, or are they headlights from a speeder ?

Craig Hanson
Vay, Idaho

Lots of interesting "stuff". Thanks for the post.
Around here, back east, Pokey refers to the old N&W and probably the current NS Pocahantis Subdivision or what ever it is actually today, subdivision, division or? Heavy coal country over the years.
As for the very cool Greyhound sign, that's nice!  Again, back east a former rock music station DJ used to refer to Greyhound as,
"A Bus"
"A Big Silver Bus"
" A Big Silver Bus, with a Doggie on the side"!
If I recall correctly my only Big Silver Bus ride was paid for by my Uncle Sam. When I joined the Army in 1967 my trip to Basic Training was via first class Pullman, via PRR and Seaboard Coast Line. My trip to the next duty station was on a damn bus. Probably a Big Silver Bus with a Doggie on the side.
Fast forward to 1991 or so, we could usually provide transportation for the daughter to Penn State but sometimes it didn't work and she got stuck on "the bus" where we could retrieve her or sometimes deliver her locally, never ever, happily. The daughter hated the "bus". I don't recall if it was Trailways or Greyhound but a bus is a bus!
Gonut
 

All the phone are so awesome. Thank you for sharing.

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Ted, many thanks for sharing these neat Pocatello pics!  The station sure has been cared for over the years.  I looked at a shot I took of it back in 2014 and it looks as good now as it did back then.  

Bob

In July 2023 I took a trip out west. One of my nights I spent in Pocatello and I was fascinated by all the unique old signs that were there. The Greyhound Bus station, Back to the Future muriel and many more that I took shots of. Very cool town. Thanks for sharing your images. 

Thanks for sharing the photos of the bus station. We had an art deco Greyhound bus station in Fort Wayne, Indiana that was much larger. Alas, it is gone. When I was in JA, we built and operated a haunted house in there for Halloween. I believe that was its last use. The homeless had make a mess of it.

Victor Baird

Interesting thread and neat photos, thanks Ted. I had an interesting visit to Pocatello some years ago, and your images brought back some memories. I enjoyed that part of Idaho a lot, and would like to get back.

As a former Greyhound driver (long ago), thanks too for the images of the classic streamline moderne bus station. Especially of the neon sign - looks like it's an animated "running dog". Not many of those still around, and they weren't all that common back in the day, either. Does the neon animation still work?

MC

Very nice series and narrative on Poky there Ted!

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Jim Baker
Riverside, CA