The westbound UP "dirt train" has paused at Wash (just east of Wellington, UT) to pick up a single empty hopper from the small, mostly unused yard there. I assume this was a bad order c... (more)

The low winter light and snow cover make for a very different picture of the Utah desert. Union Pacific's Local 45, the "Dirt Train", is carrying on a long tradition of this local dating back to ... (more)

Union Pacific’s “dirt train” from Salt Lake City to Helper, the LJP44 local, curves downgrade in Price River Canyon between Kyune and Nolan, Utah, on November 21, 2003.

UP 2380 is starting up from a stop after waiting while the Conductor removed the derail at the west end of the yard at East Carbon Development Co’s hazardous waste disposal facility. The locatio... (more)

After digging out twelve cars of sludge in the New Bedford yard, LTEX 3011 (ex-PC GP40) and MC 2008 (ex-CN GP9RM) run around their train and will start heading northbound back to Taunton.

One of my 1st trips on my own was a trip out to Montana and Utah back in 2000. One of the things on the "Hit List" was this dirt train on the ex-Rio Grande" out of Helper, Utah. Eve... (more)

We’re at Mounds, in eastern Utah, the junction point of the Sunnyside Industrial Lead with the mainline Green River Sub. Union Pacific SD60M #2373 has spent 3 or 4 hours on this branch at the Ea... (more)

The northbound "Dirty Dirt" empties on their way up the peninsula to South San Francisco.

I am really glad I was turned onto this era that the UP went thru in early 2000's. Helper Utah seemed to be the holding ground for the last life of the Rio Grande tunnel motors. The main attracti... (more)

Pan Am train SALO heads out of Everett and into Somerville over the Mystic River. The train of loaded dirty dirt gondolas from the construction site of the new Wynn Casino being built in the back... (more)

Pan AM Railways train SALO leaves Everett with a four engine lashup of GP40s. The train is crossing the Mystic River with 29 loads of contaminated soil from the construction site of the new Wynn C... (more)

An empty dirty dirt train heading east near Biggs, OR

This appears to be Union Pacific's Waste Management train from Seattle out to a massive landfill located a few miles south of Arlington, Oregon. The rear DPU's bring up the end of this four engine... (more)

Union Pacific's Cane Creek subdivision in eastern Utah traverses approximately 35 miles of varied terrain. The last fourteen miles of this branch line are probably the most photographed with the r... (more)

I heard the UP's Green River Sub dispatcher talking to the Dirt Train a couple of times but I could not figure out where the train was. Finally I heard the crew request permission to enter the mai... (more)