UtahRails.net Blog

It’s true that UtahRails.net is all about railroads, but putting railroads in context with their surroundings requires that one be aware of the roads and highways that usually parallel rail lines. My first research into roads and highways that were adjacent to Utah’s railroad lines came in early 1983 as I was researching the history of railroads in Parleys Canyon, east of Salt Lake City. I was taking a cartography class at the University of Utah, as well as a Utah history class from Dean May. Professor May was working with the Sons of Utah Pioneers on a project and suggested a history of Parleys Canyon. Doing a project that embraced the concepts of both maps and history seemed like a good idea, so off I went to start the research.

Having lived in the Salt Lake City suburbs since the late 1950s, I was aware of new roads and highways as they were being built. In fact, my earliest dreams of what to be when I grew up were to be a heavy equipment operator, running the controls of the big machines such as bulldozers, graders and belly-scrapers. I was always watching the big machines every chance I got, especially as we passed the construction sites of Interstate 15 as it progressed north to south down the center of Salt Lake valley during the early and mid-1960s.

After I began driving, and as my friends and I traveled around during the early 1970s taking photographs of trains, I remained keenly aware of the progress of the freeway system throughout northern Utah. My goal upon entering University of Utah in 1981 was to be a civil engineer, which I figured would combine my interests nicely, allowing me to work among the big construction sites, and make money doing it. I soon became deeply engrossed in the subject of the history of roads and highways when it came time to find out when U.S. Route 40 and Interstate 80 were completed through Parleys Canyon, east from Salt Lake to Park City and on to Echo and Echo canyon; it was a fascinating subject.

The research paper that resulted was called “The Golden Pass,” borrowing from the name that Parley Pratt used for his pioneering toll road through the canyon. I received an ‘A’ on both the research paper and on the accompanying map, as well as a full 4.0 for both classes. I was good at this stuff, and I enjoyed doing it.

I’ve mentioned previously that I am working my way through the piles and files that have accumulated over the past 35 years, and recently came upon a file for the I-15 reconstruction project, started in 1997 and completed in 2001. The reconstruction of Interstate 15 was the reason for so many changes to the railroads in downtown Salt Lake City, as the area was redeveloped as a project known as The Gateway.

The I-15 project included numerous new overpasses, bridges and interchanges. Among them were new on- and off-ramps to directly serve Salt Lake City. When I-15 was completed in the mid-1960s, the city’s railroads and their rail yards were an important part of everyday business, accessing numerous and almost uncountable warehouses and businesses throughout Salt Lake City’s west side. This forced the highway engineers to build overhead viaducts of great length, to move automobile traffic across the numerous tracks that bisected the city. By the late 1990s, everyday railroading had been reduced as part of everyday business in Salt Lake City, and the railroads were asked to participate in the needed changes, removing some of their inactive tracks so that the on- and off-ramps could be shortened.

It was the newspaper articles for these changes that I had kept, to mark the history of these changes for Utah railroads. And now, I needed a place to put this information.

UtahRails Highways

The newest pages at UtahRails.net are the home of this highway history. There’s more to come as I come across it among the items that have been carefully, and not-so-carefully filed away.

Included is the summary I completed in early 2010 about the street numbering system used in Salt Lake City and County, along with summary listings of highway projects approved by state regulatory agencies. These last items include information about the Art Deco concrete overpasses and underpasses built throughout the state as part of federally-funded grade separation projects, to improve road-rail crossing safety.

Fixed the lost link to The Golden Pass, a history of transportation in Parleys Canyon.