Pictured is a moment of weather drama I will never forget! I was driving through the west part of downtown Salt Lake City where both UP and D&RGW had passenger mainlines that ran down the middle of city streets. The daily 2:59 Drag from Roper Yard was arriving with several box car loads of newsprint for the Newspaper Agency, Corp., the printer that publishes both the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News. Things looked rather calm until an ominous front of clouds approached from the west. About five minutes later all hell broke loose as 70 mph winds tossed trash, rocks, tree limbs, you name it into the sky. The crew of the 2:59 took shelter in the cab of the 133 to wait out the storm and I took shelter in my Honda Civic Coupe. A minute or two later I could see a patch of brilliant sunlight approaching from the south. I knew I was in for a photo opportunity like no other as the short patch of sun approached. I set my trusty old Canon F-1 loaded with Kodachrome for full sunshine and captured this view during a brief 20 second window of brilliant lighting. To this day I wonder how I managed to be in the right place at the right time to catch this opportunity. Historically, pretty much everything you see here is gone now. The passenger mainline was removed in 1999. The elevated ramps to I-15 were torn down at the same time. The brick building at right, the Purity Biscuit Company, was demolished along 5th South in 1998. The Rio Grande 133, an SW1200 that was built new for the D&RGW in 1965 was sold by the UP to Diesel Supply Co. of Hudson, Wisconsin in July 1998, later sold to a Farmers Co-op Elevator Co. in Beresford, South Dakota.
