Exploring The Crookedest Railroad in the West

[Greg]

The narrow gauge Uintah Railway was built in 1904 to haul Gilsonite (a coal like mineral) from the mines in Eastern Utah to Mack, Colorado where it was transferred to the standard gauge Rio Grande Western Railway. It featured 65 degree curves (88' radius), a 7.5% grade, and traversed a 8,437 foot mountain divide. In comparison, the D&RGW & RGS sharpest curves were only 24 degrees (238' radius) and steepest grades were only 5%. The Uintah also had two locomotives with 42,000 pounds tractive effort, where in comparison, the largest D&RGW narrow gauge locomotives (the K-37s) were rated at 37,100 pounds.

Information from - http://home.bresnan.net/~bpratt15/

I had made a few trips up the Uintah Railway and each time I have been in awe that a railroad operated in these mountains with their numerous curves and steep grades. I have worked for the Union Pacific RR for the last 5 years and find old railroad operations quite interesting, even more so in challenging terrain like the mountains of Western CO and Eastern UT. In these modern times operating a railroad in mountainous terrain can be a challenge, think about how difficult it would have been in the early 1900's!!

In the Fall of '08 my wife Catherine, Daisy our Weim and I took a day-trip up the old Uintah Railway grade from Mack, CO with a planned destination of Dragon, UT.

From Mack we headed North up into the foothills, following the long-gone railroad track. If you haven't spent much time around railroad grades and haven't noticed how they follow the valley, you'd think it was just another graded road. After a few miles of the winding dirt road and passing the Carbonera siding, we came to the first Uintah Railway town of Atchee.

Atchee was the operating headquarters for the small Uintah Railway, it was a small town that had spring up overnight with water tanks, a machine shop and housing for the railroad workers. These days the only sign of the town are the crumbling walls of the machine shop.

Atchee back in it's hayday.-

Atchee as of 2008-

After leaving Atchee we quickly began the climb up Baxter Pass. The railway begins it's steep climb, turn after turn to reach the summit at almost 8,500 feet. At some points the railway was cut right into the side of the mountain, very impressive railroading for the 1900's.

Looking up at the cut into the mountains-

On the cut-

And how that same area looked to the Engineers & Conductors of the Uintah Railway. -

Soon enough we made the summit of Baxter Pass and we were greeted with snow and pine trees.-

Coming down the North face of Baxter Pass, we were found an old, rundown cabin. I believe this is Columbine, where they had another water tank for the old steam engines.

 

[Greg]

A little further down the track is McAndrews Lake, which supplied water for all stops to the North and a section house, for the train crews.

The next stop on the Uintah Railway was Windella. Windella had a water tank, a water spout, and a turning wye, as well as the northern locomotive exchange point before the articulated locomotives.

I'm don't recall the next place we came across, but there were a few cabins in the area. I wonder if they weren't directly related to the operations of the Uintah, but perhaps a family of ranchers who happened to live in the same valley where the railroad operated. One of the cabins has a name and date etched into the framework.

Apparently the DeShayes lived here from 1918 to 1988!! -

 

[Greg]

Soon we were at the intersection of Evacuation Creek, Bonanza, UT and Baxter Pass. Shortly after that intersection we were crossing the UT/CO border-

After making our way around and thru the mud puddles, we arrived at Dragon, UT-

There isn't much left of Dragon, nature is quickly reclaiming any man-made structures. We still poked around and found some fun pieces of history.

 

[Greg]

I know this doesn't look like much, but it is a license plate from 1932! This would be a rat-rodders dream, fits into that era perfectly well. I took the photo, then set it back down for the next explorer to find. -

This was a neat corral nestled up against the overhanging cliff.-

 

[Greg]

After making it to Dragon and poking around the day was getting late and we headed back the way we came. We then drove to the intersection and up Evacuation Creek. Our plan was to drive East, over a small mountain range and catch Hwy 138.

We found a handful more cabins on that drive and had to stop and check them out. This first one still had the cast iron stove in it.

At this point in the drive we were starting to see many natural gas wells and the road forked time after time. We had our paper map and the GPS, but navigating the many other roads became challenging. We came upon some neat rock and mud formations which nature has been playing with, sculpting with the elements.

We continued East and found the road that would lead us to the 138 Hwy. As we dropped into the wash/road, we found a sign that indicated the road was very bad ahead and let you know you were traveling at your own risk. We hadn't seen anyone else for several hours and the idea of getting stuck out here weighed heavily on my mind. We kept going, since it was the quickest route to pavement and home. The road did get bad, lots of mud and washes that had seen more water than 4x4's. At one point the road was washed out about half-way, we had to squeeze around the washout and continue on. After about 20 miles of bad roads we started climbing up the mountain pass that we needed to get over. If I recall, the pass was no more than 7000 feet, but with the recent snow, then sunny day, the road became increasingly wet as we climbed.

The mud in this are is known to be very bad.... it will pack your tires, fill your wheelwells and stop all forward progress. I had hoped we could push on thru, but on one big hill, we got stopped. I shifted into 4 Low, backed down the hill and decided to try again. The hill had washed out on the lowside, with a wash about 3' deep right next to the road. We tried once and it was pretty pathetic. I tried a 2nd time, with much more speed and RPM's. The result wasn't pretty... we got sideways with the tail pointing towards the ditch. Did I mention it was about 9 PM at this point? With some very careful maneuvering and a scary reverse full throttle application to avoid falling into the ditch, we decided to call it quits. I didn't want to spend the night up there, as we weren't prepared to do so.

We were both tired and still had to find a way out. We backtracked those 20 miles, found the main road and headed even further North. After another 30 miles of easy dirt roads and dozens of intersections, we finally found our way to a massive natural gas pumping station. The highway ended up being a few more miles away, which we navigated while dodging the many herds of deer. I thought that was odd, we had been in the middle of nowhere and seen no animals. Soon as we get close to the pavement, the deer appear. Odd... Finally we tuned South on the pavement and headed home.

It was a great trip, lots of history and plenty of amazement on my part thinking of the Uintah Railway operating in that area. It would have been quite impressive to seen their narrow gage railroad under operation. I want to get up that way again this year and explore the rest of the railway up to Rainbow and Watson.

If you head out this direction I highly recommend a set of tire chains. Wish I had some that night, that's for sure!


Thanks to Gaspipe and B Pratt for the historical photos and information!

 

[Tacoma]

Awesome reporting, Greg.

All around Bonanza, with it's huge Gilsonite trench, there are tons of drilling rigs. I was working up in that area all last spring and summer...

I'd like to head up that way on a dirtbike... looks like a good time!

 

[BlackDog]

I need to figure out where we have things like that here locally, Idaho has got to have some of the "Old West" style stuff that UT CO etc does.... maybe spend less time on Planet, RME and the like, and more time on Google.

That looks to have been an incredible trip Greg... Thanks for sharing.

 

[BlackSheep]

Cool TR Greg. Makes me miss the West.

 

[BroncoMama]

What a fabulous day! I absolutely adore trips like that especially where it's so far off the beaten path. Thanks for sharing, makes me very jealous.

 

[Jeeperman]

Man, that looks like it was a great trip, I'm jealous!

 

[Paudrhound]

Greg, thanks for the report! Looks like a fun trip and interesting.

 

[LT.]

Fantastic report! It would be nice to take a small group up there and do some more exploring. Nothing to big as it would take away from the beauty of the area but a few more rigs so that exploring could be done without the thought of not being able to return to civilization.

LT.

 

[Greg]

Glad you folks enjoyed the report, it was a fun trip. Having a few rigs would be good, get other people to help when recovery is needed! I wouldn't mind to spend 2-3 days up there next time, I think there's plenty more to see, you could justify spending a couple days up there.

 

[TimB]

Great report. I've driven Baxter many times - even picked up a railroad spike in a tire. The pipeline I work for goes over that pass and there is a pump station at Dragon.

I did not see you talk about the old station house and turntable on the south side of the pass? I think that is what you call the machine shop. The turntable is out front. The tracks changed from narrow guage to regular at that point - the narrow only went over the pass. I read a small book once that was sort of a dairy of a lady that was a kid then - she tells of seeing the train coming down off the pass with a car on fire. They just went faster because there was no water until the bottom of the pass. Cool area - very little known.

On the south side near the top, the road has slid off. You actually drive a power line road with pipe and sucker rod fence to catch you if you slide off the side. I was climbing that in an old Dodge once and the front driveshaft broke. It would not climb any without it so I had to back down - very hairy. My dad was riding with me and he got out - refused to get back in until I got the truck turned around and headed back down.

The reason there is little trace of Dragon is it was a mobile town - they drug it along as the mine moved down the canyon - guess they just drug it out of there once the mine closed. You can follow roads along the top of baxter to the west and come out about 1/2 way to Thompson - it may go further but I ran out of light and time. And was low on gas.

 

[gijohn40]

very informative both Tim and Greg... makes me very jealous and want to spend some time up that way...

 

[TimB]

Greg, for another nearby rail history trip, check out Sego canyon. It does not have the switchbacks, but cool history anyway.

 

[TimB]

My info from memory conflicts some with the web site Greg posted. I'm trying to remember where that old book is with the first person description. I found this info on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uintah_Railway
And this info from an abandoned rail site:
http://www.abandonedrails.com/article.asp?id=307

 

[Houndoc]

I like the historical info and photos along with your report. Fun reading.

 

[Greg]

Great report. I've driven Baxter many times - even picked up a railroad spike in a tire. The pipeline I work for goes over that pass and there is a pump station at Dragon.

I did not see you talk about the old station house and turntable on the south side of the pass? I think that is what you call the machine shop. The turntable is out front. The tracks changed from narrow guage to regular at that point - the narrow only went over the pass. I read a small book once that was sort of a dairy of a lady that was a kid then - she tells of seeing the train coming down off the pass with a car on fire. They just went faster because there was no water until the bottom of the pass. Cool area - very little known.

On the south side near the top, the road has slid off. You actually drive a power line road with pipe and sucker rod fence to catch you if you slide off the side. I was climbing that in an old Dodge once and the front driveshaft broke. It would not climb any without it so I had to back down - very hairy. My dad was riding with me and he got out - refused to get back in until I got the truck turned around and headed back down.

The reason there is little trace of Dragon is it was a mobile town - they drug it along as the mine moved down the canyon - guess they just drug it out of there once the mine closed. You can follow roads along the top of baxter to the west and come out about 1/2 way to Thompson - it may go further but I ran out of light and time. And was low on gas.

Good info Tim, I haven't been going up there for very long and I've only had a couple sources of information on the history of the Uintah Railway. The website I listed and some stories from another former-local that I had read online.

I have poked around in the Bookcliffs North of Cisco and some of the pipeline roads West of Douglas Pass, but haven't gone all the way to Thompson yet. Do you pass thru the Res? I thought you'd be getting into that boundary if you were on top of the Bookcliffs?

Greg, for another nearby rail history trip, check out Sego canyon. It does not have the switchbacks, but cool history anyway.

I have been wanting to make it out there, it's so close but just haven't planned it yet. Mabey one of these winter weekends!

My info from memory conflicts some with the web site Greg posted. I'm trying to remember where that old book is with the first person description. I found this info on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uintah_Railway
And this info from an abandoned rail site:
http://www.abandonedrails.com/article.asp?id=307

Thanks for the links Tim! I didn't think about checking Wiki for the info, I have more reading to do!

I like the historical info and photos along with your report. Fun reading.

Glad you liked it, the historical aspect adds a great deal of character to a trip like this.

 

[Skylinerider]

Tim, would you happen to have any other info, or stories about Dragon, or any of the ghost towns over that way?