The Utah Central Railroad was the first

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

other than the main line of the

First transcontinental railroad North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...

. Built by

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into se ...

s, it connected

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

to the transcontinental line at Ogden. It has since become part of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

, which operates the line as the Salt Lake Subdivision;Agreement Between Union Pacific Railroad Company and Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen
effective February 1, 2000 (includes a list of subdivisions from the first post-merger timetable in 1998) ''

FrontRunner FrontRunner is a commuter rail train operated by the Utah Transit Authority that operates along the Wasatch Front in north-central Utah with service from the Ogden Intermodal Transit Center in central Weber County through Davis County, Salt ...

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...

tracks were added alongside the UP freight line in 2008.

History

The company was incorporated in 1869, and completed the line in January 1870. At the time the First Transcontinental Railroad was being built,

Brigham Young Brigham Young (; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1847 until his death in 1877. During his time as chu ...

felt slighted by Union Pacific officials who had decided not to build the railroad through Salt Lake. "We want he railroadin this city where it belongs," he said on one occasion to the Mormons in Salt Lake, "the attempt to carry it in that

orth Orth can refer to: Places * Orth, Minnesota, an unincorporated community in Nore Township, Minnesota, United States * Orth an der Donau, a town in Gänserndorf, Lower Austria, Austria * Orth House, a historic house in Winnetka, Illinois, United S ...

direction is an insult to the people of this city, for in so doing they have tried to shun us." Consequently, Brigham Young formed his own company, the Utah Central Railroad, in order to connect Salt Lake to the Transcontinental Railroad in Ogden, forty miles to the north. Brigham Young did not attend the grand celebration at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, when the two lines crossing the continent met. He did, however, attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the Utah Central Railroad in Ogden held a week later on May 17, 1869, and pitched the first shovel-full of ground to symbolize that construction was officially underway. The following year, Young hammered in the final, commemorative spike, with the words "Holiness to the Lord" engraved upon it, at a special ceremony to celebrate the Utah Central Railroad's completion. The Mormons were hired to grade the Union Pacific line through Utah during the closing months of the race to complete the transcontinental line. The UP was desperate to push as far westward as possible and collect government loans and land grants. However, UP refused to pay. (At the time, the company was effectively bankrupt). To settle the debt, the UP transferred rails and other supplies plus rolling stock to the Mormons. This provided the material for the Utah Central. See p. 372, Stephen E. Ambrose, "Nothing Like It in the World," 2000: "... Young bombarded the company headquarters in Boston with demands for payment in full. The UP had no money, but it did have equipment left over and Young was desperate to have a branch line, to be owned and controlled by the Mormons, running from Ogden to Salt Lake City. ... The UP gave the Mormons four thousand tons of iron rail ($480,000), 144 tons of spikes ($20,000), thirty-two tons of bolts ($5,600), four first-class passenger cars ($5,000 each), second-class cars, mail cars, flatcars and boxcars." The Union Pacific Railroad gained control of the Utah Central Railroad in 1878, and in 1881 merged it with the Utah Southern Railroad and

Utah Southern Railroad Extension The Lynndyl Subdivision is a rail line owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in the U.S. state of Utah, running from Salt Lake City southwest to Milford, where the Caliente Subdivision continues towards Los Angeles. ...

to form the Utah Central Railway, a UP subsidiary that ran south from Ogden to Frisco. That company was subsequently merged with several others in 1889 to form the Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway, which was reorganized as the

Oregon Short Line Railroad The Oregon Short Line Railroad was a railroad in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Oregon in the United States. The line was organized as the Oregon Short Line Railway in 1881 as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railway. The Union Pacific int ...

in 1897.Don Strack
UtahRails.net: Union Pacific in Utah, 1868-1899
accessed August 2008 The OSL sold the lines south and west of Salt Lake City to the

San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles, California), via L ...

in 1903, but kept the original Utah Central. The UP began direct operation of the line under lease in 1936, and in 1987 the OSL was merged into the UP.Don Strack
UtahRails.net: Union Pacific in Utah, 1900-1996
accessed August 2008

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Utah Central Railroad 1869 1881 Predecessors of the Union Pacific Railroad Defunct Utah railroads Railway companies established in 1869 Railway companies disestablished in 1881 1869 establishments in Utah Territory

History

See also

References