The Shafter Subdivision is a rail line owned and operated by 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 Pac ...

in the U.S. states of

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

and

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 ...

. The line begins as a continuation of the Elko Subdivision at the Elko freight yards, and travels east to the junction with the Lynndyl Subdivision of the former Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, adjacent to the

Kennecott Smokestack Kennecott Utah Copper LLC’s Garfield Smelter Stack is a high smokestack west of Magna, Utah, alongside Interstate 80 near the Great Salt Lake. It was built to disperse exhaust gases from the Kennecott Utah Copper smelter at Garfield, U ...

. The line was formerly part of the Western Pacific Railroad. The entire subdivision is part of the Central Corridor; the portion west of

Alazon ''Alazṓn'' ( grc, ἀλαζών) is one of three stock characters in comedy of the theatre of ancient Greece. He is the opponent of the '' eirôn''. The ''alazṓn'' is an impostor that sees himself as greater than he actually is. The ''se ...

(a switchover near

Wells, Nevada Wells is a small city in Elko County, in northeast Nevada in the western United States. The population was 1,292 at the 2010 census. Wells is located at the junction of Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 93, approximately east of Elko and is part of ...

) is also part of the Overland Route. Shafter is the name of the rail siding at the junction between this line and the Nevada Northern Railway.

Route description

The route proceeds east from Elko, following the

Humboldt River The Humboldt River is an extensive river drainage system located in north-central Nevada. It extends in a general east-to-west direction from its headwaters in the Jarbidge, Independence, and Ruby Mountains in Elko County, to its terminus in th ...

, where the line is part of both the Overland Route and Central Corridor, the two lines use directional running to share track, until the two routes separate at Alazon. From this point east, the Shafter Subdivision is only part of the Central Corridor, proceeding towards Salt Lake City. The Overland Route branches off as the Lakeside Subdivision towards

Ogden, Utah Ogden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau, making it Utah's eighth ...

. East of this separation, the Shafter Subdivision loosely follows the historical route of the Hastings Cutoff. The highest elevation attained along the route is at Hogan's Tunnel, under Flower Pass in the Pequop Mountains. The line also crosses the Toano Range at Silver Zone and has a near 360 degree horseshoe curve in the descent from Silver Zone Pass into the Great Salt Lake Desert. The line crosses from Nevada to

at Wendover, and proceeds due east across the

Bonneville Salt Flats The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the ...

until reaching the

in Garfield, where today the route ends with a junction with the Lynndyl Subdivision. Originally the line continued east of the smelter to downtown

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 ...

, crossing and then running parallel to track built by the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. In May 1967, the

Utah Department of Transportation The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is an agency of the state government of Utah, United States; it is usually referred to by its initials UDOT (pronounced "you-dot"). UDOT is charged with maintaining the more than of roadway that co ...

relocated portions of the WP built track in the area to prepare for the construction of

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one ...

. As part of the relocation, the Western Pacific and the Union Pacific began sharing track between the smelter and Salt Lake. This resulted in both the western and eastern ends of the Shafter Subdivision using directional running with a formerly competing line. After the 1983 acquisition of the Western Pacific by the Union Pacific, the crossovers between the two lines were eliminated and the two lines were re-configured to make a single dual-track line and this portion of the Shafter Subdivision was completely absorbed by the Lynndyl Subdivision.

References

Union Pacific Railroad lines Rail infrastructure in Nevada Rail infrastructure in Utah Elko, Nevada {{US-rail-transport-stub