Western Railroad Discussion > Last weekend at Flowery Lake Pass/Hogan Tunnel

Flowery Lake Pass/Hogan Tunnel is the ex-WP crossing of the Pequot Range between Wendover and Wells, Nevada.  At close to 6000 ft, I believe that it is the high spot on the ex-WP.  While the ex-WP was built with relatively low grades, there is still quite a climb from the Salt Flats at an elevation of about 4220  just east of Wendover.  The traffic is relatively light and one problem is that the sidings on the Shafter Sub are mostly around 6000 ft long which limits the length of trains that can meet.  Mostly it is used for heavier shorter trains such as loaded grain trains and coal trains but now there are again running stack trains and the general freight.  Often the stack trains are too long for the sidings so they can only run in one direction.  Also, there are the daily (or if they are on time, nightly) Amtrak trains. 

Anyway, I went out there last Friday (July 31, 2020) with my pickup truck camper.  The tunnel area is about 20 miles off-road from I-80 at an exit marked Shafter.  Shafter is where the Nevada Northern crossed the ex-WP and is about 8 miles from I-80 on a road that is moderately rough in places.  At one time, there was a station at Shafter and probably a few other buildings.  Now it is just a siding with some fiber optic relay buildings.  The tracks for the Nevada Northern are still there and are currently being used for car storage.  I usually spend the night near the tracks at a spot with the railroad name of Hogan on the west side of the tunnel.  There is nothing there other than an intermediate signal now but it probably housed a maintenance of way crew at one point.  There were some trees there but they are most dead now.  Anyway, there is a nice view across Independence Valley of the Ruby Mountains about 30 miles to the west.  Except for the trains and an occasional plane, it is really quiet out there.

There was a westbound grain train just west of Wendover when I drove out so I knew that I would get at least one train.  Anyway, I setup where I had a view thru a cut on the east side of the tunnel and waited.  The tunnel is just about a true east west line but at both ends the tracks curve about 80 degrees to the north so the first picture is looking north as the train is just starting the turn to the west.  At this point the train is still climbing and not going that much faster than a brisk walk so I walked about 1000 ft with my camera and tripod to where I had a clear shot of the DPUs entering the tunnel. It was early afternoon so the sun was no longer on the nose.  Most of the time the grain trains have 2 lead locomotives and a single DPU but this train had 2 DPUs.  There were no more trains before dark.  So I camped at Hogan on the west side of the tunnel.  There were 2 freights during the night and the eastbound Amtrak.  The westbound Amtrak was a bit late but it was barely getting light enough to see when it came thru.  Anyway, I had relatively short ballast train just after astronomical dawn but before the light hit the tracks Saturday morning.  The train is running almost north at this point.
 

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After a relatively short wait but well after dawn, I had a eastbound empty coal train so I drove over to east side of the tunnel to set up for a morning shot of the train coming out the tunnel.  Usually, the coal trains have two lead locomotives and 2 DPUs on the rear but sometimes, they lose the DPUs for the empty return run.  Anyway, this train still had the DPUs so I got a going-away shot of the DPUs leaving with a trail of dust and smoke after coming out of the tunnel.  Then I had a wait until early afternoon.  From my location on the east side of the tunnel, I could hear 2 of the detectors east of Wendover.  Most of the detectors have been modified so they only say "UP Detector, Milepost XX.X"  but there is still one east of Wendover that response with "UP Detector, Milepost XX.X, No Defects, Axle Count, XXX, Train Speed XX, Temperature XX (or XXX)".  So I knew I had a relatively short train westbound train (axle count 116) so it could have been a local that runs between Salt Lake Roper Yard and Wendover.  After a while, I could hear the engineer calling signals west of Wendover, so I knew that the train was running west of Wendover,  From my perch on the east side of the tunnel, I could see a westbound train coming 20 miles away and there is detector just east of Shafter about 15 rail miles east of the tunnel.  Anyway, it was a different sort of train with articulated ballast conveyor cars and two spreader conveyor cars.  As it still early in the afternoon, I set up to get a picture looking north thru the cut east of the tunnel and hoped that I would get another train later in the afternoon so I could take a shot of the power exiting the west side of the tunnel.



 

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There was no way I was going to be able to walk far enough to get a picture of the rear of the train going into the tunnel, so I got a going-away picture of the rear spreader car. 

After a while, I heard the talking detector announce "no Defects, axle count 466, train speed 31 MPH,  temperature 104.  So it was hot, a typically long train and relatively slow.  I was almost 2000 higher so it was probably only about 96 or so where I was.  The train was really slow so I had a long wait but it finally made the climb up over Silverzone pass east of Shafter.  I waited until it had passed Shafter before heading to the west side of the tunnel.  It was a loaded grain train with a single rear DPU and 112 cars.  It had taken so long that I was starting to get shadows on the north side of cut coming out of the tunnel.  The second locomotive was a SD-70 which was different as mostly they use AC locomotives on the heavier unit trains.  The portal on the east side of the tunnel is natural rock but the west end of the tunnel has a concrete liner and a concrete block portal.  I got a going-away shot of the rear DPU and train making the turn to the north which was a combination of sun glint and dust and smoke from the tunnel.

I had been listening to the dispatcher and the power help desk talking to another westbound train that was having problems making full power with a newer Tier 4 GE locomotive.  The power desk came to the conclusion that they had a turbo-charger problem that could not be fixed by the crew or by resetting some software function and the dispatcher asked if they had enough power to continue.  Anyway, at this point, it would be well after dark before they reached the tunnel area.  It turned out to be a long stack train that came thru well after total darkness.

Saturday had been a relatively productive day but Sunday was mostly a bust.  If I had better understood what I was hearing on the radio, I could have taken pictures of a tamper and a ballast spreader going east and coming out of the east portal of the tunnel but by the time, I figured out what was happening, it was too late to get set up.  There was no other traffic before I left mid afternoon.

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Wonderful coverage Sam. It's been quite a while since I have been to Hogan Tuunnel and I miss it greatly. Your pictures cheered me up.

Dick Ebright
Roosevelt, Utah

Great pictures and descriptions. Always enjoy your shots from this area.

Kim Heusel

Great series!

Wonderful pictures and a fine write-up. What a neat place - I had not heard of it before.

From time to time, I think about what it must have been like to ride in one of the domes on the WP's section of the California Zephyr during the night on a clear, moonlit night at places like this and Silver Zone Pass on the WP as the train crossed Nevada during the nigh. In winter, with snow on the mountains in the distance. It must have been spectacular.

Great photos of an area I have never seen before. Thank you for your considerable efforts to get them. 

A piece of meteorological trivia: In dry air the temperatures changes 5.5° for every 1,000 feet you ascend or descend. You estimate was pretty good. 

Great series! Love the going away DPU shots!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/20 07:42 by SP8595.

Great stuff..!!  Thanks for posting.

Thanks for posting these pics, and great description.
I Used to fan around this whole area in the 90's, and have posted many videos here on TO, mostly of UP steam, one of them of freights coming east through this tunnel, and coal going west into the tunnel.
Yes, when there's no trains out there, and you turn off your vehicle, the silence is almost "ear crunching" except for the sound a few critters now and then.

Back when I fanned there, didn’t have a scanner, just looked across the valley in the distance on either side of the tunnel.

Also thought I saw coal remnants out at the far edges of the ballast near the top of grade, could have been from steam days, or from modern coal trains?

By the way I may be mistaken, but I though the name of this mountain range was Pequop, not Pequot?
Oh! As a matter of fact, my Galaxy phone just wanted to auto spell it as Pequot, not Pequop (smile)

Love the photos with the tunnel smoke haze in them!

Would love to go back there someday, and thanks again for this post!

Here's link to one of my videos at the tunnel:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4405559,4405559#4405559

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/20 17:12 by RailRat.

Always good to see your posts, Sam.  

Thanks for sharing your desert time with us.  

I've been in Provo for the last six months.  I haven't gotten out of Provo much, but I really should have bought an old DSL off KSL and taken some long lens shots in the Provo yards.  

Ted in UT