Today, I have chosen a photo from my archives. After I graduated from high school, several years ago, I moved to Utah to go to college. Well, what really happened is I went to some classes, but spent still managed to spend most of my free time running up to Salt Lake City to look at trains. Up to that point, I had never lived around the Union Pacific or any mountain railroading, so there was a lot to see. When I first went out to Utah, the Utah Transit Authority had not expanded to include any commuter rail operations, and the light rail system was significantly smaller than it is today, but I still used the system frequently.
The photograph I settled on comes from April 2006. The semester had just ended at school, and so I really did have nothing better to do than run to Salt Lake and look at trains. I went up there wanting to do a few things I had not gotten during the winter. On the bucket list for that day was to ride the entire light rail system, known as TRAX, which at that point included two lines. One line went from the Delta Center (now the EnergySolutions Arena) to Sandy, and the other to the University of Utah. I had been on the Sandy line many times to Salt Lake, but never the University line. I also wanted to find the Amtrak station, which at the time was several blocks from any transit, and now is the largest central transit hub in the city, and home to the commuter trains, known as FrontRunner. I also wanted to find some of the old stations in the city. I knew that TRAX ended near the old Union Pacific station, which is now part of the Gateway Mall complex. Besides all that, of course, I wanted to go look at some Union Pacific trains.
During the course of that day, I managed to get several pictures of the TRAX light rail equipment while it laid over at the Delta Center (now Arena) station, which was the end of the line at the time. The tracks ended in the middle of the street, directly in front of Union Pacific station. The contrast between the two struck me. The new, modern, light rail vehicles and infrastructure take up most of the view, but in the background is the old station, with its ornate stone and brick work, large windows, and enormous neon sign, that makes the former owner quite clear. While train service to Union Pacific station ended when Amtrak moved to their current depot, the station continues to serve as a convention and event center, which can be rented out for private events and parties. I never was able to find out why the TRAX train said "Special" on the destination signs, but it was parked on the tail track at the end of the platform, possibly awaiting a busier time of the day.
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