The crude oil business seems to have become nearly as important to the Utah Ry. as the coal business. According to a URY engineer I talked to, they are shipping out around 80 cars of crude oil a week to be interchanged to the Union Pacific at Provo, UT. A crew from Martin yard makes a short turn of about 5 miles or so to the oil loading facility at Wildcat 2 or 3 times a week where they exchange empties for loads and return to Martin yard. Then, a couple of times a week a road train makes a turn from Provo, over Soldier Summit to Martin with a bunch of empty tanks and a few loads of acid from the Kennecott smelter at Magna, Utah. They exchange the acid loads for empties and swap oil empties for loads and then return to Provo. This photo shows the eastbound road train of oil empties as it is descending Price River Canyon at the west switch of Kyune siding. The 5 big 6 axle units all wear the Utah Ry’s attractive gray and red paint scheme: no G&W orange on this train today!
