BN Oly wrote:

"I was under the impression for some reason that Silver Zone was nearly devoid of traffic, and that all westbounds used the SP across the lake.

Has that changed?"

Actually, this has never been the case. There was a UP manager maybe seven years ago who tried diverting all through traffic to the old SP line across the lake, which would have eliminated service between the lime plant at Pilot and Wells; however, he did not succeed.

That being said, the old WP line is typically fairly quiet and only handles perhaps 6-10 trains a day- at least one intermodal each way, the Roseville to Roper manifest and its counterpart, Amtrak 5 and 6 (usually in darkness), a pair of BNSF trackage right freights (one each direction), and then the unit coal trains running the loop between the mines in Utah and the power plants at Dunphy and Valmy. A lot of the unit grain trains seem to use the ex-WP, which can swell the train count when they are running. I spend a fair amount of time at my job along the line, primarily between Wells and Silver Zone, and traffic can be very hit and miss- some days I'm within sight of the line for 8-10 hours and maybe see a single train, other days I may see 4-6 in that time period.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV