Salt Lake City, Utah: Frontrunner

The question is: who will operate the service, not who pays for it.

Another Utah Frontrunner MP36 left Boise today. It's road number is 7. It'll probably make it down to Salt Lake City some time next week.

UTA will operate the trains, and I believe application for Frontunner jobs is open only to current UTA employees; anyway I tried to apply online and was unable to get to Frontrunner. I'll inquire further.

Anyway, the final few miles of Frontrunner line into SLC is part of a major rebuilding of UP North Yard and the interlocking commonly known as Grant's tower (the tower is still there, but the interlocking is remoted from Omaha). A lot of roadbed for Frontrunner has had to be rebuilt, even though much of the route inside of SLC uses former UP roadbed. They're really digging deep to head-off potentially troublesome groundwater sources (common in the north end of SLC).

The old North Yard UP shops are now a UTA facility. Frontrunner equipment will be maintained there, and light rail vehciles (TRAX) are also being rebuilt there. Moreover, Bombardier has moved into the shops to assist in the rebuilding of used TRAX light rail vehicles.

Over the weekend, 29 ex-NJT "Comet I" cars with "BLDX" reporting marks led by Union Pacific 9789 (an ex-CNW GE C44-9W) came through suburban Chicago heading west toward their new Utah home on UP's busy Geneva subdivision. I later found out that they were actually headed to Colorado Railcar, where they will be rebuilt for Utah's frontrunner service...

Some single deck cars showed up at the SLC UTA shop complex yesterday, June 26. I couldn't get close enough to see if these were the same cars.

For photos of Frontrunner construction go to utahtransit.us

I don't know if any of the cars to which doepac refers made it to Colorado but I photographed a buch of them today (June 29) at the UTA shop complex in SLC. I will update www.utahtransit.us with pictures.

Frontrunner is installing what I would call a dwarf block signal. I'll get some photos of them. Yesterday, July 4, for the first time I saw two of them lit, red of course, even though trackwork through SLC is not yet completed.

Why is a whole new track being constructed for Front Runner?

Otto Vondrak wrote:Why is a whole new track being constructed for Front Runner?

My guess would be to improve capacity between SLC and Ogden. Sorta like Pan Am benefiting from the Downeaster project.

This is a very good question. Between Salt Lake City and Ogden a major issue was capacity. Often, UP's mainline is a parking lot, so a separate, mostly single track (though there are some crossovers to UP for emergencies) Frontrunner line was necessary. Withing SLC the question becomes more complicated. The fact is, UTA has adopted their own standards for track construction (both Frontrunner and TRAX) including concrete ties and crushed stone ballast, as well as extensive work to head off groundwater problems. Within SLC some seemingly good UP track (the old passenger mains on the Frontrunner route and the old Provo subdivision for TRAX) were ripped out, allowing UTA to dig deep, sometimes 6 ft down to reballast and redirect groundwater, even though these factors didn't seem to bother UP. Hope this in part answers your question.

I've added some photos showing TRAX light rail and Frontrunner convergence at the Intermodal Hub.

I've added a picture of the spectacular Frontrunner Ogden flyover.

I failed to mention that the Frontrunner Ogden Flyover consists of two segments. I have included in my website an additional view of the already displayed segment, as well as a photo of the other segment. It's all really quite impressive construction.

Here in SLC there was considerable debate (even among non-fans) about where the TRAX-Frontrunner Hub should be located. The ultimate choice was the old Rio Grande freight station. I argued for the old Rio Grande passenger station. I debated the point with Mayor Anderson's assistant, Baxter. Baxter assured me that the freight station option was the only viable one. I remain unconvinced. The old UP passenger station was also favored by some, but its adjacent real estate was too much in demand by the Gateway Mall developers - so that was the end of that.

The refurbished D&RGW freight station is a cracker box compared to the old Rio Grande passenger depot. Though I am impressed with what UTA is doing, the hub choice still bothers me and others. I've added a couple of night shots of these two great passenger stations on my website.

I have added some commentary and photos dealing with Frontrunner signaling and CTC, on my website.