Salt Lake City Southern Railroad - History

History

The line was originally built between 1871–1872 by the Utah Southern Railroad. By March 30, 1872 the Utah Southern reached Point of the Mountain which is the southern end of the Salt Lake City Southern Railroad at Mount. In the 1870s, the Utah Southern was constructing a 105-mile line from Salt Lake City to Chicken Creek (Juab, Utah). Brigham Young was listed as the railroad's president. In June 1875 financial control of the railroad was turned over to the Union Pacific Railroad.

On July 1, 1881 the Utah Southern was consolidated into the Utah Central Railway. The Utah Central was building a rail network from Ogden–Milford, Utah. By 1888 the Utah Central was an operating subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad.

On August 1, 1889 the Utah Central was consolidated into the Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway, an operating subsidiary of the Union Pacific. On March 1, 1897 the railway was renamed the Oregon Short Line Railroad. The OSL, a UP subsidiary, was leased to the UP on January 1, 1936.

From 1936–1993 the Union Pacific operated the tracks as part of their "Provo Subdivision." In the 1990s the UP shifted shifted its trains on the Provo Subdivision to the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad tracks between Salt Lake City and American Fork, Utah. The UP no longer needed the line between Salt Lake City and Mount (also known as Mound or Point of the Mountain).

RailTex acquired the line between Salt Lake City and Mount and began operations in 1993 as the Salt Lake City Southern Railroad. Today the Utah Transit Authority (UTA light rail) owns much of the track as part of their light rail right-of-way acquisitions. The SL operates over the UTA tracks via trackage rights.

On September 30, 1999 the SL became a subsidiary of the Utah Railway.

Read more about this topic:  Salt Lake City Southern Railroad

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.
    Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)

    If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.
    Josiah Royce (1855–1916)

    It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.
    Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)