A Look Back, Three Railfan Trips 2019: Part 1: Las Vegas and Kingman, Arizona

Part 1: Las Vegas and Kingman, Arizona
Part 2: Solo adventure to Ely, Nevada
Part 3 Western Nevada and Sumpter, Oregon

UP 844 leading an excursion train in Boulder City on the Nevada Southern Railroad on March 16, 2019;

This year I went on three major railfanning trips with friends. 2019 was always going to be a big year for railfans, with the long-awaited Golden Spike 150^th celebration and the return of Big Boy to steam. Utah was bound to be a major location for all of these events, and it would host UP 4014 on two separate tours throughout the year.

However, I wanted to have experiences that were away from the bustle and crowds that the Big Boy would bring, and experience the 150^th year of the Golden Spike throughout the west where I could see how the coming of the railroads changed life out here. It was also the first year in my life where my own family was not having any vacations of our own; my parents had decided to go on their first trip to Europe together and they made it clear that the only way my sister and I could join them was if we could pay for our own ticket overseas.

To be clear… their tour had them depart Utah to head to London on May 10^th. I am sure most of the readers here would understand why I would not want to be leaving Utah on that day especially this year! Second, all of my own European fantasies seem to begin and end in Wales on the Ffestiniog and Talyllyn railway lines… and somehow the idea of touring London, Paris and Berlin was not the European trip I’d choose myself. Lastly, it was expensive; domestic traveling is much more affordable than international especially on a shoe string college student budget! So, I ended up joining up with friends to plan and execute our own vacations and trips this year across the American west. Sorry mom and dad, but maybe Europe next time.

January 3, 2019; was the day Dynamic Rail Preservation's two locomotives an F40PH and SDP40F left Utah on a freight train heading to Nevada. I captured a few photos of them while the train passed through the Tooele area.

Our first trip in March was born several months prior to that in January of this year; when Dynamic Rail Preservation finally moved its two locomotives stored in Ogden to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City. We wanted to see DynaRail’s new home in Boulder City, and see how Nevada was treating Chris Fussell’s/DynaRail’s two locomotives. The next catalyst for the trip was the discovery that a piece of my hometown railroading history resided in Boulder City now. The International Smelting and Refining company had operated a steam crane known as “The Crab” in Tooele, Utah at their facility there along the Tooele Valley Railway. When the smelter closed “The Crab” was sold to the Heber Valley Railroad, and eventually was bought alongside other ex-HVRR stock by the Boulder City museum.

Lastly were the rumors that south of Boulder City, in Kingman Arizona was a land of milk and honey where the railroad action never stops on the former ATSF transcontinental railroad. Chris’s two locomotives, the BNSF action on the former ATSF and “The Crab” were the trifecta needed to launch a spring break trip to the Vegas area.

Joining me on the trip was Josh Bernhard; Desert Empire Project’s founder and one of our editors; and Schon Norris a former contributor to our blog and co-host of the Railroad Roll By Podcast with local radio DJ Todd Nuke 'Em. On March 15^th I picked them up in Provo to begin our trek south to St. George where we would overnight before heading into Boulder City and Kingman the next day. I left behind a partially finished group homework project, I had done my assigned part and I figured my team mates would finish it before I returned Sunday night.

I-15 doesn’t offer much railfanning opportunities past Nephi where Union Pacific’s Sharp Subdivision begins to head west shortly south of town. So, for a bunch of railfans, this first leg of the journey was a caffeine fueled trek across Utah with not a lot going on other than our own idle conversations. It was the next morning, Saturday March 16^th where our real fun began.

St. George is a marked contrast with the Great Basin Region, being the far end of the Colorado Plateau in Utah red rock country. I-15 drops off the plateau region through an Arizona canyon that straddles Utah and Nevada; then entering Nevada the altitude drops and the increase in heat marks the beginning of the eastern Mojave Desert. Seeing how northern Utah is still locked in winter, the summer like heat of the Mojave was a nice change of pace. I was a bit too excited to enjoy the heat, and forgot to apply sunscreen and ended up with a sunburned neck by the end of the day.

One of the Las Vegas Monorail trains glides past Harrah's and The Linq on the backend of the Vegas strip on March 16, 2019.

Our first major railfan stop was in downtown Las Vegas. We joked that we were in Las Vegas in spring break, not to see the clubs or casinos; but instead catch a sight of the monorail! The Las Vegas Monorail is a Bombardier system, based on the system first installed at Disney World in the 1970’s. We wandered on the back end of the Vegas Strip to watch the monorail as it climbed and crested the curves along its route. After sometime watching the monorail, we rushed back to our cars to head out to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City.

The Nevada Southern Railroad rides along the former Union Pacific branch that connected the Hoover Dam construction site to the national rail network. The northern leg of the branch up to Henderson is still in service with Union Pacific; but the southern leg hosts the museum and their tourist trains. We arrived and the museum’s director Randy Hees and Braden Brickman one of the museum staff both guided us on a tour throughout the museum for the next few hours.

One of the projects currently at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City is the construction of Dan Markoff's replica narrow gauge passenger car Elsa. This car will accompany his famous Eureka locomotive in future visits to narrow gauge railroads.

Randy and Braden were great hosts. They walked us through the railroad’s shops so we could see DynaRail’s locomotives up close in their new home, we even ran across DynaRail’s president and owner of the locomotives Chris working in the cab of UP 844 (the GP30) in-between tourist train runs. We toured a private parlor car kept in the museum, and got a kick checking out the “Jackass and Western” equipment that was used in NERVA nuclear engine tests by NASA and the Department of Energy at the Nevada Test Site.

A faded outline of the NASA logo is visible underneath the DOE emblem on one of the preserved Jackass and Western locomotives. The NERVA rocket would never fly in space, but the idea of nuclear powered rockets is still discussed as a future deep space method of travel.

Randy opened up the back end of the museum for us, so I got to get my chance to get up close to “The Crab.” We also got to see Uintah Railway #12 stored in the museum back lot. In-between all the historic equipment on display, we took occasional breaks to photograph UP 844 and the rail bikes coming in and out of the museum to head on excursions on the railroad line.

Faded red paint has turned to orange in the Nevada desert sun, but The Crab is in remarkably good mechanical condition.

Nevada Southern Railway 1000 was one of the first diesels on the Union Pacific. It would later work for the Western Pacific and the Sacramento Northern before entering preservation on the Heber Creeper. It moved to Nevada with a large majority of the former Heber collection in the 1990's.

I have to speak very highly of Randy and Braden for hosting us. If anyone is out in Boulder City area, I definitely recommend taking the chance to visit the Nevada Southern for themselves and experience it. It’s a great museum, that has plans to grow over the next few years!

UP 844 returning rail bikes to the museum's station platform.

Dynamic Rail Preservation 644 would be renumbered later in the year to its BNSF era "6967." Due to the work of Dynamic Rail Preservation and the Nevada Southern, the locomotive would return to operation in November 2019.

BNSF freight passes alongside the preserved ATSF era Kingman Depot. The station is still an active Amtrak stop after it was restored a few years back.

BNSF action on the double mainline just east of downtown Kingman.

After our time in Boulder City was over, we began our trek south to Arizona to Kingman. The long drive was rewarded with Barbeque in Kingman at the end; but we had to see for ourselves… was the ex-ATSF transcontinental really the fabled train mecca we had been told about? We already saw one train before entering the BBQ place, and we swore we could hear a few more pass while waiting for our meal… so as soon as we were finished eating, we rushed out to see the traffic.

Kingman did not disappoint. I had never before in my life seen so many freight trains in one place passing each other almost nonstop. BNSF runs a constant line of freight traffic along their southern Transcon all day; and every 15 minutes we were almost guaranteed another train passing through town. We were stunned, we’d move to one location and have a train almost as soon as we arrived; then when we’d discuss moving location, we’d start packing up our gear only to whip it out seconds later when we heard the distinct shriek of dynamic brakes coming around the curve. We were constantly bouncing around town, enjoying the constant action. 

"What the...!?!?" a trailing Union Pacific DPU on a BNSF freight gathered our teasing ire in Kingman Canyon. Another train with a Ferromex leader and a KCS unit trailing caught us by surprise.

Schon and Josh demonstrate the natural seating in Kingman Canyon.

We finally settled just off Route 66 in Kingman Canyon on top of a pile of rocks overlooking a pair of ATSF painted bridges. Josh, Schon, and I stretched out on the natural chairs formed by the rocks and just enjoyed the nonstop parade of trains along Route 66 from our perch. We got a few chuckles at the oddball Union Pacific or Ferromex locomotive, joking we traveled out here to see BNSF not these locomotives! Our jokes and obscenities echoed in the canyon, muffled by the growling prime movers on upgrade eastbound trains, and the whine of dynamics on the downgrade westbound. Dusk fell, and we packed up, grabbed gas for my car; then began the long drive from Kingman back to St. George.

Our discussion in the car became something of a meme among ourselves and our friends. We started debating the value of sound effects in model railroading, and the long debate over pro-sound anti-sound kept me awake while driving the long drive. Turns out Schon and I were very much in favor of locomotive sound effects, while Josh felt a more traditional soundless approach was truer to the hobby. After the long drive we finally pulled into St. George and grabbed some late-night Arby’s, before heading back to the hotel.

On March 17^th, I took a break from Josh and Schon to visit my grandparents who live in St. George. My grandmother was suffering from dementia, and I was glad to visit her and spend time with her and grandpa; since grandma would end up passing away a few weeks later. I shared with them a few pictures I had taken in Boulder City and Kingman, hoping perhaps the photos of The Crab would jog a few memories from my grandfather who worked at the International Smelting plant in Tooele in his youth. After I spent time with my family, I returned to the hotel to meet up with the rest of the crew. While I was gone Josh and Schon plotted a route that would take us to Iron Mountain and then onto Lund, Utah up through Milford then along the Lynndyl Subdivision then the Sharp Subdivision back to Provo, Utah.

The mothballed locomotives at Iron Mountain just outside of Cedar City, Utah continued their long rest on March 17, 2019 when we stopped in the area to check them out. Once the lease expired on these locomotives, the lessor decided to scrap them on site later in the year.

Little did we know how that re-routed plans would begin to change our last leg of the trip into a different journey we’d never forget! We arrived easily enough at Iron Mountain, exploring the mothballed locomotive fleet and the branchline leading from the Union Pacific to the moribund iron mine through sharp hills and pinion pine trees.

My car at Lund was already looking terrible... I wish I got a picture of it before we reached Milford since it was already looking comically worse; but I think I was to frustrated to bother with grabbing a photo of it by then!

It was on route to Lund we encountered the first troubles in an early spring trip through the desert, wet muddy roads. My RAV4 limped through dirty roads into Lund, and we were a bit nervous but decided to stick to the dirt roads on the route north to Milford. Soon it unraveled into a disaster… my car was covered in mud, Josh and Schon had to push my car out of the mud while I tried to throttle the car out of the muck. A few grunts of frustration and profanities laced rants later, we eventually started bush-whacking through sage brush, the brush grabbing to my car’s undercarriage and beating us around. The bush seemed friendlier than the mud anyways.

We did manage to catch a few trains outside of Milford and on our route to Delta; but it felt sparse after the nonstop action the day before in Kingman, Arizona.

By the time my car rolled into Milford, it looked like it had come out of a jungle expedition. Sticks of brush plastered on with mud were glued to my car. Turns out Milford has no car washes… so we had to try and clean off my car with a gas station squeegee. We tried railfanning a bit between Milford and Delta, but compared to the feast of traffic the day before; the LASL felt like a famine.

In Lynndyl, I noticed my car started shaking as I approached 60 mph… we pulled over to inspect it, and I found more brush stuck in the undercarriage. The following trip over Leamington Canyon was a crawl, and getting into Nephi and back onto I-15 was a slow slog where we had to stick to the right line with emergency flashers on to Payson. I nearly considered abandoning my car in Provo letting Schon drive me home but I decided to stick with it and drive on the final leg back. By myself now, I crawled slowly across the valley’s back home… fortunately The Killer’s Hot Fuss album kept me company. I learned to love the bass lick of Jenny Was a Friend of Mine that night, as it kept me awake during the long limp home.

Thank you Brandon Flowers and Mark Stoermer, et. al. for giving me some music to stay awake to on that long slow drive home.

Then I got home only to discover neither of my teammates had done anything in the group project I had left that weekend. A late night was spent on my computer, waiting for them to finish their legs of the assignment before I could submit it in for its Monday morning due date! The next few days I was faced with paying for the repairs to my car transmission due to the damage caused by all the sage brush back in Lund.

Weeks passed, and somehow the legendary car disaster at the end of our trip morphed into legend; and I had over a thousand photos to admire from our trek. Somehow the group project came together in the end and I passed that class. Eventually May struck and after the Big Boy with its crowd’s and hysteria had come and gone… I decided it was time to do it again. I learned a few things… this time I wasn’t going to let my car get stuck in the mud!

-Jacob Lyman 

Want to hear more about this particular trip? Check out this episode from the Railroad Roll by Podcast where Schon talks about his views on the trip near the end of the episode.