North Salt Lake Rail

Saw sign to the side of Center Street, North Salt Lake: "Future Route of Center Street Rail." Center street runs at a 90 degree angle to the route of the Frontrunner. Could the folks in my hometown (which I generally regards as backward as could possibly be imagined) possibly be thinking of trollies? Do any of you other Utah locals know anything about this?

Try this link:


http://www.rideuta.com/calendarAndNews/ ... fault.aspx

I use TRAX light rail to get to the Sandy campus of Salt Lake Community College where I teach a class. On the way back this evening (7/9/07) shortly before reaching the Fashion Place station, the motorman sounded his horn and slowed down (this never happens outside of station). Then we slowly passed a TRAX worker who gave us a once over. My first thought was that this was some sort of security issue. The rest of the ride was uneventful until we reached Ball Park station just outside of downtown. Here there were about 4 or five workers on the ground and in the distance off to the left on a piece of old Provo subdivision (UP) trackage (which has a catenary stub) sat a light rail set with workers on top examining the pantographs. I have never seen light rail trains on this stub before, or witnessed any of this kind of problem. I'll investigate further. Well, travel is always an adventure.

I submitted a formal request for information and received no response. I guess UTA had no time for train buff questions. Anyway it was pretty apparent that the problem was a catenary eating pantograph. I wonder how often this sort of thing occurs. Apparently not often.

Much of the Trax light rail system (UTA) was shut down this AM (11/06/07) due to a fire on board the outward most light rail set at the light rail maintenance facility @ 7000 South in Salt Lake County. Of course, this is as reported in the media which generally doesn't understand rail operations. Whatever the reason, the sytem was largely shut down this morning due to a fire for about 3 hours. System is resuming operations now. Buses covered during the downtime. When I get decent info I'll post or put it on my website.

Well, as best as I can determine, here's what happened. Just before the morning rush on 11/6/07 the frist light rail set was trying to leave the 7000 South Trax maintenance facility (note this is not the ex-UP Frontrunner facility north of town), when the lead light rail unit somehow fowled its pantograph (Trax uses lubricant impregnated pantographs, don't know if that had anything to do with it), causing an arc and a fire, partially damaging unit 1013, and plugging the lead out of the ready yard for about two hours. There was essentially no Trax service for about 2 hours - during the morning rush. The Siemens units have pantograph troubles every now and then (I've witnessed them). That's about it for now.

Martin Luther King Day - 2008 - witnessed the heaviest snow of the season in SLC, so I took a ride on Trax.

www.utahtransit.us/mlk1.htm

In Salt Lake City, UTA begins testing its new Trax light rail extension to the Intermodal Hub. UTA is very careful in activating new plant and equipment. Here are some photos:

www.utahtransit.us/tt1.htm

On 6/14/2008 I shot some photos of the UTA TRAX shops complex:

www.utahtransit.us/ts1.htm

UTA TRAX light rail has posted significant traffic gains:

http://www.utahtransit.us/may2008stats.htm

Take a ride on UTA TRAX's University of Utah branch:

www.utahtransit.us/uofu1.htm

Shown below are UTA TRAX (and Frontrunner) light rail traffic gains.

www.utahtransit.us/summerdat.htm

There's been a lot of progress on the Mid-Jordan TRAX branch, UTA.

www.utahtransit.us/mj1.htm

Construction of the UTA West Valley TRAX branch continues hot and heavy, 3/20/2009.

http://www.utahtransit.us/wv1.htm

The UTA Mid Jordan TRAX branch gets stimulus money:

www.utahtransit.us/midjordan_stimulus.htm
www.utahtransit.us/mj1.htm