Posted Mar 23, 2022, 4:44 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Posts: 1,434
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That is good they are not getting rid of the comet cars yet. They don't have enough bilevels to compensate for the lost capacity. Those comet cars have been a source of debate ever since I can remember, with proposals to either delete them or add a second one to all consists gaining momentum then dying out. (Check out my photos link for a test train they ran years ago with two comet cars, it looks pretty good!)
If they ever do scrap the comet cars, it would be trivial to adjust the steps on some of the bilevel cars for low platform use. Literally every other agency that uses those bilevel cars has only low platforms, with a 'high block' for wheelchairs. Uta is alone in the world for offering level boarding for those cars. Even stranger, Salt Lake Central is the only station that offers level boarding for Amtrak's superliner cars, which gives that station the distinction of having two unique platform heights but no standard platform for other visiting trains. It's just a weird place.
Thanks, Atlas, for finding the grade crossing numbers! I looked over which crossings they correspond to, and here's my guesses for the double track project:
Complete double track between American Fork and Draper, including through old town Lehi and the Jordan River narrows.
Complete double track between South Jordan and Murray Central, excluding the flyover bridge and the two crossings on either end.
Lengthening the siding at 1700 South in Salt Lake City southward, probably as far as 3300 south, leaving a 3 mile gap to Murray Central.
Complete double track between Woods Cross and Farmington, and possibly up to the Kaysville siding (though probably not).
Lengthening the Clearfield siding northward to 6000S street in Roy, leaving a 3 mile gap to Roy (unless the list is incomplete, since there are only two more crossings to get all the way to Roy).
Then there is some confusing stuff, like a bunch of crossings near the Warm Springs maintenance area that will get rebuilt despite the fact that there is already double track there. Presumably they will need to rearrange the yard to hold twice the amount of trains. I can only hope that they take this opportunity to reroute the mainline to the west of the maintenance buildings, in order to eliminate the sharp S curves, but that may be asking too much.
Overall I'm really excited for these changes! I am very happy that it appears UTA is building real double track, not just lengthening sidings. This way, trains can still run at their top speed between stations instead of slowing down for the switches. In talking to some people building the new Vineyard station, I learned that UTA has splurged on a very expensive 60 mph switch, rather than the regular 40 mph switch, so that trains won't have to slow down quite as much as I thought, but it will still drag down the travel time overall.
If there is anything I'm disappointed about, it is the 3 mile gaps that will remain on both sides of the Vineyard station and between Clearfield and Roy. Those are going to prove very annoying in operation, but hopefully they are short enough that they can be rectified later in smaller projects.
The 3 mile gap between Murray and the South Salt Lake siding is very understandable, considering how many bridges and relocations needed in that area.
But man, that section between Woods Cross and Farmington is going to be amazing, especially if the rumors are true and UTA plans to run at the full 90 mph the track is built for! Flying past traffic at that speed will be so satisfying.
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