Railroaders' Nostalgia > The SP Salt Lake Navy

Wednesday at Work Second set

THE SP SALT LAKE NAVY

Railstiesballast posted a photo of trains meeting at Bridge and shows a large part of the GSL Navy. The construction of the fill and its future were in a large part due to the GSL Navy of which is shown in the photo, a very small fraction of the original..
The consist of the “Navy” that I inherited in July of 1965 was one cabin motor launch, four diesel tug boats equipped to both tow and push, one 50 x100 ft flat top barge with a steel deck all welded so a dozer could push gravel and rip- rap from it with out any trouble.
This equipment was the remnants of the large causeway construction flotilla and was placed between the Trestle and the Causeway at the junction of causeway and trestle at Bridge with instructions to keep all the marine equipment ready and serviceable at all times.
Mr. Donald Joseph Russell himself issued these instructions to the Chief Engineer after the opening of the causeway. On my first business car trip with the Superintendent he issued the instructions on how to care for the Navy and whose directive it was on the care and upkeep of the equipment. I was also instructed to keep a qualified crew available when the Car Sunset was to be there that if it was Summer DJR might require a boat ride to inspect the Navy. The B&B handled the Navy and took very good care of it.
It was not until almost a year later did I learn why this archaic equipment that had not been used for about 7 years was to be kept at all, let alone in immaculate repair.
Sure enough in August of 1965 the special train stopped at Bridge and the entourage detrained and walked over to where the Navy was secured and DJR asked if the boats were running and one was started and prepared to move but all he said was “That’s Good” and said “lets go” turned an headed back to the train. This was the one and only time I was ever to inspect the “Navy” with him. Every trip after that as we would go by Bridge he would inquire about the readiness of the fleet.
On a subsequent trip with Chief Engineer H. M. Williamson I inquired about the reasoning behind keeping obsolete equipment at all and in such immaculate repair.
I learned the causeway had so many unknowns relating to stability that some back up protection was warranted and since this project was entirely orchestrated by DJR that this Navy was the damage protection. The four tugs could handle the barge under most conditions. The handrail would be removed from the trestle and the barge secured to it and loaded with air dumps and then taken out to the damage on the causeway and make repairs. It appeared to me to be a good plan but thank god in 24 years it was never used.
There could have been some political reasons also but I was never aware of any.
To my knowledge from 1958 when the causeway was placed in service there was only one subgrade failure and that was at Bridge in 1958 when two F units were derailed .
After the 1969 authority to raise the fill back up to 4212 ft. as there was not any bad settlement spots in the 10 years so there was not quite so much emphasis the navy.
From 1965 until 1989 the barge was never used and started to fall into disrepair s the GMO money was eliminated. We did manage to keep 2 tugs going and in 1976 we used them at the 50-car derailment at Bridge to push the derailed cars back away from the trestle to the causeway where the cranes could retrieve them.
This was the last time the boats were used and DJR had retired and the navy was no longer vital.
In 1982 the last remaining tug was sent to the B&B in Oregon to be used at Tacnich Lake.
We tried to sell the barge for scrap but due to it setting on the lake mud and no longer floating we got no takers. Later I learned the trestle salvage crew took it over and got it floating and the last I knew he had moved it to Bridge.
The Navy and the Trestle are gone but the Causeway is still there..

Thanks, JLY
Here is the only image I have of the "Salt Lake Navy", taken in early '73.
Must have been an artistic moment, there isn't much to tell you it isn't almost anywhere along the ocean. What was unusual was the fog.
I seem to recall that the B&B Dept also had a small skiff with an outboard to help make inspections of the trestle.
Recently I went to Google Earth to look at the lake and causeway. There was a link to a photo that somebody had posted titled "Rusted remains of a fishing boat", but the tall pushing bow was clearly visible. A fishing boat would starve to death on this lake anyway.

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There were some 16mm clips from Morrison-Knudsen about the GSL work that they did, the clips included a power boat of some sort pacing a train. They also showed dumping rock off the barge using a bulldozer. I think these were available from Pentrex a few years ago, my copies are VHS. In the past, JLY had expressed a few thoughts about the 1963(?) NWP footage from M-K.

In addition to SP's GSL fleet you note, there was an +/- 16ft aluminum boat that looked like someone's fishing boat that was kept in the MOW yard in Ogden. I know it had been used off and on to inspect the Bear River trestle and the original openings in The big fill. The thing was pretty dented up from launching over the rip-rap. On either side on the bow the boat had the rectangular Southern Pacific Transportation stickers that adorned MW vehicles at the time.

I often wondered how many other boats the SP owned by the 1980's


Pat

Every bridge gang that had a water crossing should have had a couple boats. To work and inspect off of

Posted from Android

Years ago, probably in the late 80's, Pentrax included a video called "Mariners in Hard Hats" with some of their VCR tape purchases. I believe it was produced for Morrison Knudsen and chronicled the construction of the Salt Lake fill. I don't have a copy but remember it being very interesting to watch. Dave

Some bridge tenders for swing spans had to use boats, usually oars, to get to/from a bridge that was left "normally open" as was the case on branch lines.

railstiesballast Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some bridge tenders for swing spans had to use
> boats, usually oars, to get to/from a bridge that
> was left "normally open" as was the case on branch
> lines.

Like the bridges on the NWP.

speederman01 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Years ago, probably in the late 80's, Pentrax
> included a video called "Mariners in Hard Hats"
> with some of their VCR tape purchases. I believe
> it was produced for Morrison Knudsen and
> chronicled the construction of the Salt Lake fill.
> I don't have a copy but remember it being very
> interesting to watch. Dave


That is correct information Dave. It was an M-K produced documentary / marketing video of the construction of the new fill, including videos of taken in 1956 of the studies done before the contract was let. It shows the equipment being brought in and constructed on site (for the construction Navy), the construction camp towns being built, and some film of of the largest non-nuclear explosions used to blast the mountains nearby as a source of gravel, rip rap and fill materials to be used. It then shows the various stages of construction and the ceremonies at the completion of the fill and the first train over it. It runs 30 minutes in length.

I originally got it in the VHS - tape format when Pentrex offered a select group of generically packaged videos that you could choose from as a free tape for/with every purchase of one of their regularly price tapes. Pentrex did this every year in December in the late 1990's - early 2000's, and their free generic packaged videos included 5 other MK produced videos concerning RR construction projects done for a specific RR, plus some other non MK RR documentaries and Hollywood RR movies. None were ever offered for sale by Pentrex, rather they were always available through other types of promotional offers for a limited time. Later / more recently, some of them have been offered in similar promotions but now in the DVD format. I also have the Mariner's in Hard Hats in DVD format. The product code for it is #MKSPSL-DVD. While you can't normally purchase it from Pentrex and you won't find it listed on their website or in their catalog, you might try giving them a call and mention this product code and see if there is some way you could purchase or get a copy. It does not hurt to ask, the worse they could say is no or wait for their next promotional offer that involves these types of videos.

A Pentrex DVD that IS currently available for Purchase from them might which might also interest you is titled Tough Times on the Southern Pacific. It includes a 10 minute SP documentary about the 1956 GSL trestle fire, which MK was called in to help rebuild. This DVD has several short SP company produced documentaries about rebuilding the RR after disasters. It also includes the EEL River Canyon flooding in 1964, the Tehachapi earthquake of 1952, the Roseville yard military ordnance train explosions in 1973, and a couple of other incidents. It is a very interesting DVD and the Trestle fire, the Earthquake, and the EEL River segments include some of the MK footage as well as SP's own footage in them.

FYI, like I mentioned above, Pentrex offered a total of 6 Morrison-Knudsen RR construction project documentaries in their promotions, 5 of which I found to be fascinating. They were offered in VHS-Tape format and were titled:

"Mariners in Hard Hats" - about SP's construction of the GSL fill in 1956 - 1958
"177 Days" - about SP's rebuilding the NWP in 177 days after the disastrous late 1964 EEL River Canyon floods
"Best of the West" - about UP's construction of the Harriman Cutoff on Sherman Hill in I believe 1952
"Railroading with the Rio Grande" - about 3 projects done in the 50's 60's for the DR&G with the main focus of the new Potash spur in Utah
"Better Way for the Santa Fe' - about ATSF's line relocation and eliminations done to their main near Pheonix AZ in I believe the early 60's

They also offered an MK documentary about a RR construction project MK worked on in the 1960's along the Amazon in Brazil. I can't comment on that one because I never got that video. Both the Mariners in Hard Hats and the Railroading with the Rio Grande have also been released in DVD format.

I assembled a collection of the above M-K documentaries and gave them to my dad about 10 years ago. He's a retired mechanical engineer of some renown in other industries (his specialization was both steel mills and thermo-dynamics) who also has a fascination for the railroads, though he's not a railfan. He was thrilled with the gift and thoroughly enjoyed these videos. He's now 92 and still going strong.

Kind regards,

Greg

Who got to use the motor launch on weekends? 8>)

Seems like it could have been fun to explore the lake, absent a storm.

mapboy

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> railstiesballast Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Some bridge tenders for swing spans had to use
> > boats, usually oars, to get to/from a bridge
> that
> > was left "normally open" as was the case on
> branch
> > lines.
>
> Like the bridges on the NWP.

And two on the SP Galveston Sub.