Day 10: Utah to Wyoming

And so begins a 2000km trip across four states. I'm now so far behind I can hardly remember what I did each day, but I remember for whatever reason peering through the blinds on this morning and seeing the local cop driving rather slowly through the motel car park… bit nosey no? I packed up and hit the road, turning right and heading down the main street of Helper to check if any trains were waiting. Nope. I noticed now that said cop was now following me. I turned down Poplar St to get onto US6 and noticed that the cop also turned down here. Hmm, I thought, I think I can see where this is going. I turned onto US6 planning to head up to the Utah Railway Depot; if nothing else, I would confused him. However the moment I touched the accelerator lights started predictably flashing in my rearview mirror. Sigh. I pulled over and waited for him to come over.

About 20 minutes later he'd finished with me. Sigh. He was friendly enough, I guess, although a little surprised anyone my age could afford to come to the states for 5 weeks, and just to look at trains. He asked if I had any photos of trains so I pulled out my camera and had heaps. He asked to see all my paper work and spent a long time entering it into his computer. Oh and why was I pulled over? Apparently I had failed to indicate coming out of the motel car park, and I'd made a slightly less-than-perfect arc when turning. Only problem is, I had indicated because there was a car at the crossing opposite and they were wondering where I was going to go. As for a less than perfect arc… sigh. I also hadn't seen him anywhere near when I'd apparently not turned. Maybe he has super vision. I didn't bother arguing any of this, I fully suspect he just didn't like someone with Colorado plates in his town. I had to explain that the "Michael D K, Adams" printed on the rental form was the same as the "Adams, Michael" printed on my license.

Finally he'd finished with me and I made super certain to indicate for about half a minute before driving off on US6. (Mark who I'd met the day before in the ditch used to live in Helper and said it was a nice town, but the cops really had nothing better to do and were always looking for reasons to stop him… I'm quite inclined to believe him.)

Here is the motel by the way:

No trains on the way up, so took a detour down to Schofield Reservoir. Lake was totally frozen and it was a very pretty drive in. Saw a few people ice fishing too.

Eventually I found the coal mine I was after, and there was even a train being loaded.

The conveyer belt that takes coal up to the loading bin; I think, can't quite work it out from the photos.

Train getting loaded

Storage silos

Had a good look and then headed back. Passed a tiny town on the way out. A dog came down to watch me.

Then it was off to Provo. I'd organised to meet my friend Jerott, who I'd met last time I was in Helper, and through the wonders of modern technology finally managed to arrange a meeting point (international texting is near impossible; ended up using my Kindle to write an email). Got horribly stuck in traffic on the offramp; a 1 minute drive took 20 minutes. BUT, I managed to rendezvous with Jerott!

We soon formulated a plan and headed off. Had a good chat and he loved my yellow "that side of the road, dummy" arrow. Soon arrived at Provo but got sidetracked by a train on the way there. Intercepted it and jumped out. Jerott soon got chatting to the crew, knew a few of them.

There was a bit of a storm brewing which made for some nice lighting.

We then headed on down to the Provo yard itself and had a look around. I loved that the rail yard had a letterbox (one for UP, one for Utah Railway, I presume). The Utah Railway also had an amazing intra-yard crew mobilisation device:

Spied a line of locos and went to hunt them. The lighting wasn't quite in our favour here.

 

Bumped into the conductor from when Jerott showed me around his loco last time; small world huh!?

Then we went on a bit of drive through the yard, down between the tracks, then between the trains; this is a very little known secret public road apparently :-) It was very weird driving between two coal trains; the wagons towered over my SUV.

I drive between these two trains!

After a while the maze ended and we emerged into the sunshine. We went down to the Intermountain Power Project yard where the 11 loco Utah Railway train the previous night had ended up. These guys have a very sharp looking switcher:

And isn't the scenery here amazing?! What you can't see are us jumping up and down trying to get our shots over the 6 ft steel link fence :-)

Time was getting on so we headed back down between the coal wagons. Lighting here was fantastic now, beautiful storm light with dark brooding mountains.

And one final shot of some remote control locos…

We hit the freeway and I dropped Jerott back at his car. What a fantastic afternoon! Stunning lighting, great tour guide, and fun time had by all. Glad that we managed to catch up because our schedules just weren't lining up.

I then hit I80 and headed on up through Echo Canyon, passed a few trains on the way. There were predictions of a fairly fierce snow storm due to hit that afternoon and I caught the very edge of it heading up I80; was very windy in places. By the time I arrived in Wyoming though it had petered out. Wyoming is quite different to Utah. Not nearly as mountainous, and no highway billboards advertising: "Have you got your letter? Then head to www.missionarymall.org for all your mission gear!" Their freeways are pretty good though and I made great time, stopping for dinner at goodness knows where, before arriving in Rawlins and checking into an inn here. Wasn't especially cheap, but was very comfy and well appointed.

Headed off to bed to the sight of snow flakes being blown past the window… heading up. 450 miles down, many still to go.