My wife and I flew to Las Vegas, rented a car (total of 1100 miles in 5 days) and embarked on a two-part adventure – chasing the 4014 for a day and a half and then the inaugural run of a multi-trip Nostalgia Tour of various places and National Parks in the west where we camped, climbed and backpacked in our ‘youth’. We used Cedar City, UT, as the base for this (with no apologies for not being 100% accurate historically – hotel room and restaurants instead of crawling in and out of a two-person tent and cooking with a white-gas fired Coleman stove).
We drove from Cedar City to Milford (UT) late Friday afternoon – arriving after 4014 (Milford is where 4014 overnighted). The engine was very accessible – I suspect the local crowd had already started to dissipate, hence some of the closer-in shots shown below. Milford (still) is a UP division point and the SLC-LA line has a fair amount of freight traffic – mostly double stacks and auto racks. We did see one long, loaded unit coal train headed south towards LA. Since there are no coal-fired powerplants in CA and the two in southern NV – Reid Gardner and Mohave – are closed, I presume this coal was headed for export through LA/Long Beach.
Milford, UT - stopped for the night
Milford - 4014 detail and builder's plate
Train crew – including Ed Dickens – was very friendly and spent a lot of time chatting up various clumps of onlookers. The logistics support for this trip is non-trivial. Along with the RR police (all duded up in black Stetsons – you’ll see some in the pictures) driving their police SUV’s (the whole 60-day tour), there is a pickup truck with a big water pump – we saw it hooked up to a fire hydrant at Milford. There are also 18-wheelers to supply fuel oil – presumably locally contracted. The train support crew seemed to pay particular attention to lubing all of the bearings and sliding surfaces associated with the pistons and driving rods, connecting rods, etc.
Ed Dickens and crowd
'36 Chevy truck -- five years older than 4014
The next day, we drove to Modena, UT (locals say mo—DEE—na – apparently no Italians nearby to correct them), where 4014 was to stop for about 30 min. When we arrived – about 30 min before the scheduled 4014 arrival, there were a couple hundred folks trackside. The population of Modena – on a good day – is 21. I think its claim to fame is that it has a water tower for the RR (no longer in use). By the time 4014 arrived – about 30 min late – that crowd was easily in excess of 1000 people (20% of whom had dogs barely under control). To paraphrase someone more (in)famous than I, that had to be “the largest audience ever to witness ...” a train passing through Modena. The RR police had their hands full. One of them was flying a Mavic 2 drone equipped with a speaker up and down the tracks warning folks that they needed to stand away from the tracks – which was a never-ending job. In fact, when the train first pulled in and stopped, there was a surge of folks rushing to take up-close shots all along the train. Of course, the train crew and police were apoplectic – as the train brakes hadn’t been set yet – the usual procedure is to get the lube folks out in force on the engine, then after an initial ‘lube job’, roll the engine forward about a half or three-fourths turn of the driving wheels, then lube some more. Once that had been done, the train brakes were set and Ed Dickens with his bullhorn came down from the cab to announce that folks could get close to the train – no climbing on the engine. After about 15 minutes, Ed came back on the ‘horn to say – very politely – that in about 10 minutes, folks would have to clear the tracks and the nice gentlemen in the black Stetsons would ensure that happened. And off they went toward Caliente, NV. My guess is that most of the crowd at Modena were from Cedar City, St. George and some of the other small towns in the southwestern corner of UT. It was Saturday – so lots of families with kids (and dogs).
Modena, UT crowd and drone (must have been 5 or 6 in the air - only one was UP police)
Modena crossing
Modena departure -- off to Caliente, NV (drone in front of 4014 notwithstanding...)
Caliente, at ~1100 people, is the largest town in the county – which isn’t saying much, since the entire county claims a population of ~5000. Still, the town has paid attention to up-keep; it has a nice linear park along the RR tracks and has turned the old, mission-style RR station built by UP in the 1920’s into city offices, etc. There was a reasonably sized crowd – mostly locals from what we could tell – but smaller than at Modena. The RR police had a much easier time of it, as there is a wrought iron fence along the station platform separating the crowd from the tracks.
Crowd at Caliente station - waiting for the northbound double-stack to get out of the way so we could see 4014
End of 4014's train -- Kenefick observation car and the mission-style Caliente station
Our trip ended with some sightseeing in Zion NP, Bryce Canyon NP and Cedar Breaks N Monument. Wonderful scenery, lots of fall colors and amazingly to us, lots of tourists (it looked like July used to look, without the heat). Here’s a sample of the scenery and colors.
Temples and Towers of Zion NP
The Watchman - Zion NP
Fall colors - Zion NP
Fall colors and arch - Bryce Canyon NP
