Nostalgia & History > Time Well Spent

In 1983, another photographer and I spent a glorious few days in August photographing the solid sets of F-units on US Steel's relatively unknown ore-hauling railroad near Atlantic City, Wyo. The railroad was down to operation on two days--Tuesdays and Thursdays--delivering pelletized ore from the Atlantic City mine to the UP connection at Winton Jct., Wyoming, for transport to the USS blast furnaces at Geneva, Utah. Here is the uphill train of empties on August 30, 1983, approaching the Atlantic City mine. We chased this railway for two days in a four-wheel drive vehicle, and promised to come back several months later to catch operations in the snow...a railroad employee offered to let us borrow his snowmobiles for the chase. We didn't know it at the time but the railroad would not survive the winter. USS shut down the mine and railroad six weeks after our visit and scrapped everything. The cab-unit F's survive in dinner train service, the B-units were scrapped and the rails on this scenic line were lifted a couple years after this photo was taken. The 40 or so rolls of Kodachrome I exposed in those two days were barely enough.
David R. Busse photo.

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Dave, great photo and great story. In the comparatively short time I've been doing this, I've already gotten a couple "I'm glad I did it when it was still running" type shots.

-Mike

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..