Western Railroad Discussion > UP Cane Creek Sub & the Twilight Uranium Tailings Train

Not wishing to interrupt our family’s spring break vacation (Dad's dream mtn bike vacation) in the Moab, Utah area, I was able to use a Nokia Lumia to capture these two fleeting views (from our moving auto) of the daily Union Pacific uranium ore tailings train as it headed to its southern terminal at Emkay, UT in the early evening. These trains are being used to relocate a large amount of abandoned uranium ore tailings from an unlined site next to the Colorado River to a less flood susceptible surface site located 30 miles to the north, next to the Union Pacific (former DRG&W) mainline near Crescent Junction/Brendel.  

VIDEO
The brief pacing video clip was taken on April 5th just north of the Canyonlands Airport along US 191. 

IMAGE
The still image was taken two days later as we descended Arches Scenic Drive.  In this image, Emkay is just above and to the right of the small visible patch of the Colorado River. In the foreground below, is the entrance gate for Arches National Park. The tailings site is visible just above the red taillights of the car traveling southbound on US 191. Containers are loaded at the tailing site on the valley floor and then trucked up a dedicated roadway to the rock shelf at Emkay where wheeled gantry cranes transfer the containers onto the articulated well railcars. The growing City of Moab, UT is visible in the distance across the Colorado River from the tailings site. Also visible in this photo (just ahead of the locomotive) is a large slope of loose red sand extending from the tracks to the highway (where several parked vehicles are visible). Whenever we passed, there were always families stopped here with kids climbing and then sledding down the red loose sand on cardboard sleds.

LINKS
Moab, Utah UMTRA Project Website
2010 Trainorders.com Post on these trains (with much better photos) 

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There's a nice view looking down onto the loading area from the blue dot trail which runs along the top of the rim above the tracks.  A very worthy ride with some serious climbing and descending, not to mention some exposure on blue dot and portal.  Hope you guys enjoyed yourselves.  Moab is one of my favorite places for a mtn bike vacation.  12 trips and counting. 

NCA

Little bit older(lot)so we only rented bikes and stayed on the paved trail except when we got up on the plateau trails, but lots of hiking and plenty of other photo ops.
We went first week of Nov, things were pretty quiet people wise, great weather and excellent room rates.  Arches, Capitol Reef and Canyon Lands plus lots of other.

Bob Jordan

 

Am I correct that the tailings train runs once a day, and based on this report, usually heads south out of Brendel late in the afternoon, if not right at sunset? How much longer is this train -- or, if there are more than one, are these trains -- expected to run?

Is the regular local train still running in the day on Sundays?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/15 07:55 by toledopatch.

thought there were 2 shuttles trains a day

According to the UMTRA website,

"...On the afternoon of November 18, 2014, a major rockslide occurred above the rail bench at the Moab site. The north end of the rail bench was deemed safe for rail loading operations and the project restarted shipping operations on January 13, 2015. The trains are currently being loaded with 104 containers. DOE continues to implement rockfall mitigative measures and reopened the south haul road to the rail bench on March 23.The Moab Project is currently shipping one train a day, Monday through Thursday. During the month of March, more than 54,700 tons of tailings was shipped to Crescent Junction for disposal, for a total to date of more than 7,417,000 tons shipped."

http://www.gjem.energy.gov/moab/general/site_ops.htm

The two empty southbound trains pictured made the daily trip between 6:30 and 8:00 PM. Perhaps it waits for the WB Zephyr to pass before departing the Crescent Junction disposal site.
I did not see when the loaded trains headed back north.  

On our hike up to Corona Arch (highly recommended), I noted that the tracks on the south side of the Moab Tunnel (to the Potash facility) were well polished. 
 

It has been a while since I received an update but this is what I last heard....

The one dirt train per day is running Sun-Thurs and the call time is 16:30ish. The train is left at the dump near Brendel on Thursday. On Sun, the crew is transported north to get the train. Mon-Thur the train departs the load-out at EmKay sometime after 17:00, travels north, switches out the empty train with the loads and returns to Emkay. Thursday's run is just to the dump, then crew returns to Moab to start their weekend.

The train has been running at reduced lengths for close to year ( I think), but that is about to change and the full size trains will be running in the near future. It is also running in an 1x1 configuration so travel times north are slower than when they ran 2x2.

Todd Busse

I was surprised when I seen that train run the Sunday of Labor Day weekend

How long will these "HOT" trains continue running; what is the half-life of uranium? These may be the last trains running on the planet--D&RGW wins!.

Nice photos, I loved our visit to Moab a few years ago and want to go back.  My kids still talk about playing on that sand hill below the tracks, it's a lot of fun.

Nathan

And now you have no problem finding them because they glow in the dark!

Out