Riding the ghost rails.

[lostagain]

First off i call this the ghost rails because of the many stories i've read and heard about the chinese and americans that died while making the stretch of tracks from lucin to promontory point, they still seem to be trying to complete the tracks. i don't believe in ghosts or anything like that but they are cool stories


Well a few of us decided to go run the old Transcontinental RailRoad sunday. We also wanted to go camping, so we decided to leave salt lake saturday afternoon and shoot for camping in the old town of Lucin. so i tossed my youngest daughter in the jeep and we left SLC around 3:30, the wind was blowing hard, one of the local weather stations said 70-80mph and i believed it since we were heading west at 75mph and my stupid rubber radio antenna was pointing north Now here's where it gets interesting, there is nothing but desert wasteland and salt flats on I80 from grantsville ut to wendover, NV. Well guess what driving down I80 was like........yup massive dust and salt storms that took visibility down to about 3 car lengths in spots. (all though it actually made the drive interesting for once, since fighting to keep the jeep straight and guessing where the rd and traffic was made the drive much better than it usually is.)

After 2 hours or so of fighting with the wind and dust we reached our exit, did the quickest fuel top off i have ever done and headed north towards our destination. on our way to lucin we stopped at the sun tunnels to check them out, spent a few min there until it was starting to get dark then we decided to head to lucin to get camp setup. we got camp setup and a fire made then just sat back and listened to the great horned owls and coyotes in the area sing for the evening. After a great nights sleep and listening to my daughter explain to me how her first experience sleeping in the jeep while camping was, we made breakfast while waiting for a buddy to how up so we could hit the road. He showed up and we finished packing and took off to explore and follow the RR bed for the next 130 miles.

enough of my ramblings now on to the part that everyone wants..........pictures

in the dust storm, he was at the most 1 car length ahead of us.

the dust storm in the military test range area

about 10 miles north of wendover, pilots peak in the background.



the "salt" storm across the salt flats.

sitting at the sun tunnels

kind of an idea the size of the tunnels, she's 4'

our camp at lucin

posing with a 100+ yr old cottonwood tree.

my daughter loves standing out there and waving at the engineers so they'll hit the horn at her

the sign as you start the transcontinental RR



more to come........

[lostagain]

one of the many small trestles you encounter during the trip. we used to drive over all of them but now only a few are drivable.

70yrs ago there were tracks here

signs like this are throughout the route, you can get a good idea of what the area used to be like when it was a busy train route.



obligatory posing on a trestle shot.

terrace used to be a big thriving city.

now all that remains are bricks and some artifacts

the terrace cemetery

the only headstone that hasn't been stolen(yet)

old RR ties still in place

the route is littered with RR ties and spikes as you travel down it.

kelton cemetery

there used to be many headstones with lambs on them for the children that are burried here, this is the only one remaining.

on our way to I15 my daughter convinced me to stop at the rocket display

heading back home on I15, this pic made me realize that i'm gonna put in some cool off road airbag since the rear seems to sag abit when loaded full of gear.




the full album can be found here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v6...tal RR 3-2012/

if your curious about any of this history Wikipedia actually has some good info of the route. or you can ask and i'll post links or explain to the best of my knowledge

thanks for looking

[Horus]

Great report. I love history.

[rstrucks]

Cool trip.

[96RedZJ]

Looks like a good time.

[lostagain]

Great report. I love history.

me too, thats why i bought the ZJ i needed to get back into seeing it. it's hard with my XJ when it has to rely on a trailer to go down the freeway LOL

Cool trip.

thanks

Looks like a good time.

it was a great time. this weekend is the pony express route.

[zjeepin]

awesome trip, thanks for posting up....

[dp96zj]

Awesome documentation of the trip. It's stuff like this that makes me wanna move to UT/CO/NV...

[1ABrian]

hey this was pretty cool. Sorry late to the game but cool story line here

[lostagain]

thanks guys!

this is the reason i purchased another ZJ they make a great exploring rig.

[1ABrian]

no doubt...and they look good doing it too. I live those wheels on your ZJ.

[lostagain]

thanks, i actually bought them for my MJ but thought they looked better on the ZJ