You got it...but you should have come in 1999, traffic was much better then. There was a UP manager ten or so years ago that tried his best to shut the line down as a through route, most of the trains shifted over the to old SP and traffic on this line has never recovered. The only semi-dependable train in daylight hours now is the westbound Roper to Roseville manifest, it can show up anywhere from late morning to near sundown, depending on when it gets out of Salt Lake. Otherwise, the BNSF trackage rights train does run, but not by any predictable schedule that I can see, they can be expected nearly any time. Amtrak goes through both ways at night, the only prayer of catching them in daylight is if you happen to get a westbound running 6 or more hours late. That being said, one of the best photos I've seen taken at the loop was a time lapse exposure of one of the Amtrak trains making a complete circuit of the loop, it was in one of the major magazines a couple years ago. This time of year the line will see two to four westbound loaded grain trains a day, the eastbound empties seem to go by way of the ex-SP east of Wells. Coal trains bound for the Valmey and Dunphy power plants run, but again those are sporadic and not really predictable. Throw in an occassional oil train, and that about sums up the traffic on this line. My job periodically takes me to at least within view of the line, sometimes for most of a day...some days I see nothing moving at all, other days 3 and very rarely 4 trains.

Access to the loop can be had from both the Shafter and Pilot exits off of I-80, it pays to have a map (and to stay the hell of private driveways on the Pilot Valley side) and high clearance 4WD, as the roads up through the pass have suffered some significant water damage over the last couple years.

Also of interest is the original WP line up and over the pass, plainly visible from especially the eastbound lanes of I-80, and the old WP cast concrete bridge over old US 40, though only one side of it is still exists, the other side having been heavily modified in some grade widening work quite a few years back.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV