Starting in 2005, I spent several years living in Utah while I was in college. One evening, as I was surfing the internet, I came across a reference to a "Deseret Western Railway" being the only electric railroad in the state of Utah. Up to that point, I had always assumed that Utah had no electric railroads. Union Pacific and Utah Railway are the two major railroad presences in that state, and both maintain fleets of diesel locomotives. Since it was located several hours away and I did not own a car at the time, I filed it away in the back of my brain as something I would like to go check out in the future.
A couple of years later, I decided to go check out this electric railroad in eastern Utah. A roommate and I were bored one afternoon, and he had just bought a new car a few weeks earlier and wanted to drive. However, he complained to me that he did not know where to go. I suggested we go check out the Deseret Power Railroad and gave him a brief explanation of what exactly it is. He agreed, and off we went.
The Deseret Power Railroad was built in 1984 as the Deseret Western Railway. It is the only electric railroad in the state of Utah, and is not connected to the rest of the North American rail network. The 35-mile railroad is owned by the Deseret Generation and Transmission Co-operative. Coal is moved from the Deserado Mine, near Dinosaur, CO, to the Bonanza Power Unit, a 400-megawatt power plant located near Bonanza, UT. There is a loop on either end of the railroad, and no sidings or stations in between.
All trains operating on the Deseret Power Railroad are electric, using power generated by the coal it hauls. The Bonanza Power Unit generates electricity to operate the railroad and the coal mine, all of which are owned by the same company. The railroad uses seven General Electric E60C locomotives, which draw power from a 50,000 volt overhead catenary.
Our little road trip out to see the Deseret Power Railroad was fun. It was quite something to find this electric railroad line out in the middle of the desert. It does not run directly through any towns, and even the nearby ones are pretty small and isolated. It goes through an area many would call "the middle of nowhere." I took pictures at several locations online. Despite driving to several locations on the railroad, we did not see any trains.
The following photos are some that I took on that trip, the entire bunch of them can be found at the Ogden Brothers Trains
Facebook page. You do not need to be a Facebook user to see the photos.
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| Looking east down the tracks, near the Deserado Mine. |
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| One of the only grade crossings on the railroad, just outside the Deserado Mine. |
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| A rural crossing near the Colorado-Utah border. |
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| There sure is a lot of open land around this railroad! |
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| Catenary support. |
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