Welcome to my blog chronicling the construction and operation of my N Scale WestRail Group - Salt River Railroad Division. 

My shelf-style bedroom layout will depict a present-day industrial spur of a fictitious shortline holding company, WestRail Group.  This will be the Salt River Division, representing a short ex-ATSF branch in southwest Phoenix, operating from an interchange with the Union Pacific Railroad's ex-SP Phoenix main near Tolleson, running south a few miles to the north "shore" of the Salt River Railroad. 

HISTORY

Originally built back around the turn of the century as the Glendale and Salt River Railroad, the idea was a connection from the Santa Fe in Glendale, AZ running south across the Salt River towards an eventual terminus at the Mexican border via Tucson.  The line never made it further than the Salt River southwest of Phoenix before being absorbed by the Santa Fe Railway, operating as the Salt River Subdivision. 

Early on, the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad built a spur through the same area in hopes of deterring the new road from continuing its trek into the area.  Ultimately, the two roads agreed to a reciprocal handling agreement between their respective spurs.  After the Glendale and Salt River Railroad was acquired by the ATSF, and the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad was acquired by the SP, the two Class 1's continued to provide haulage service for the other on their respective lines.  This traffic was interchanged daily in Phoenix, a practice which continued through the decades including the BN/ATSF and UP/SP mergers. 

In the early 2000's, the now-BNSF Railway was feeling the pressure to abandon much of the line between Glendale and the I-10 freeway due to development and freeway expansion.  This segment was largely devoid of any customers outside of Glendale proper.  However, this would leave the south end of the line orphaned.  Ultimately they applied for abandonment, which was granted formally in the summer of 2003.

Following the abandonment, they briefly operated a local several times per week from their Mobest yard, shoving south to the UP interchange, then running west to Tolleson on the ex-SP line, before shoving in reverse via a new interchange track onto the remaining Salt River Subdivision line.  They would then switch the various customers before returning via the same route to their yard and tying up.  For this trip they used a wide vision caboose as a shoving platform. 

After a short stint at operating this way, the line (along with several other short spurs and branches in the southwest) was sold to Riverside, CA-based WestRail Group, a holding company for a handful of industrial and short lines in the region.  The new operation became the Salt River Division of the WestRail Group on June 1, 2004.  Originally operations continued exactly the same, with the Salt River Railroad (SLTR) interchanging with the BNSF at Mobest.  After doing this for about 6 months, a small interchange yard was completed adjacent to the UP in Tolleson, and from that point on the Union Pacific's own local did all the pick-up and set-out work for the interchange with the SLTR, delivering BNSF-destined cars to the BNSF as part of their normal Phoenix interchange.  Operations have remained largely unchanged to the present day.

Their are several large and several small customers on the line.  These will be highlighted in a separate post but the most common car types handled on the line are boxcars, plastic pellet covered hoppers, 2 bay covered hoppers, mill gondolas of scrap, corn syrup tank cars, vegetable oil tank cars, and occasional other loads handled at a small transload yard. 

Motive power on the line in the Santa Fe/BNSF days was whatever four axle power was available, while WestRail Group provides power from it's pool of mostly four axle units, most of which wear it's simple maroon and white scheme.  Currently a pair of GP38's are assigned to the line but as they occasionally rotate out for maintenance and so forth, other power can be seen.  This might include other similarly painted WestRail Group units, WestRail Group units still wearing former-owner schemes, or lease units.  All WestRail power is RC-equipped, so if a lease unit is assigned it is usually accompanied with an RC-equipped WestRail Group unit as well. 

For the shoving platform a standard cupola caboose is currently assigned to the line, resplendent in the line's maroon and white scheme also.  Other equipment on the line is whatever is interchanged, with plenty of BNSF and UP home road cars mixed in with whatever else comes through. 

OPERATIONS

Each morning the SLTR crew goes to work in the Sunland Industrial Park, where they usually tie up at the end of the work day after switching out the various customers.  After getting all of their paperwork together and making sure the train is ready, they climb onboard the power and proceed north a short distance to the UP main in Tolleson.  Here, with permission of the UP dispatcher, they will line the switch for the main and pull west onto the line.  The interchange yard is on the north side of the UP main, so they pull clear of the west switch to the yard before setting out their train in the yard.  They then assemble the inbound cars, reverse back onto their line, couple up to the shoving platform, and report clear before shoving south. 

In Tolleson there is one SLTR customer, Maricopa Beverage, which was located on the old alignment prior to the new interchange track being constructed and the old line being abandoned.  The customer was moved to a spur off of the UP in Tolleson that was unused, and SLTR switches this customer out as needed before heading south.

The first group on customers on the SLTR are in the Sunland Industrial Park, less than a mile south of the UP interchange.  Here, several warehouse and manufacturing customers are switched out frequently, with perhaps 60%-70% of their overall carloadings going to these customers.  Once done here, they proceed south further, encountering a few more warehouse and manufacturing customers, as well as the growing transload yard.  These customers account for the majority of the remaining business.

South of there, the line becomes just a spindle heading about another mile or so south to just short of the normally-dry Salt River.  Here a large scrap operation is served as needed, usually receiving 1 or 2 gondolas for scrap loading at a time, though perhaps only once or twice a week. 

Sometimes a customer will be switched again on the return trip, usually at the transload yard, before the train runs north and ties up at the Sunland Industrial Park for the day.  If a "hot" car needs to be grabbed from the UP local at Tolleson, or delivered to the interchange quickly the same day, the crew will make a quick run back up to the interchange, but this is fairly uncommon.

The line is a fairly simple operation, with no real runarounds and all turnouts trailing point.  Basically it's a pull-north and shove-south setup.  Other than the interchange yard in Tolleson, there isn't really a "yard" for the crew to use.  Instead, a few stub-end setout tracks along the line are used to hold overflow traffic or cars otherwise not yet deliverable. 

One interesting point along the route is in the Sunland Industrial Park, where the north-south Salt River Railroad crosses the east-west ex-M&P spur built way back at the turn of the century.  It remains in place today as a UP spur, operated as needed west to a cement distributor and a small scrapyard.  It crosses the SLTR on a 90 degree crossing right in the middle of the industrial park, with the UP local crew having to stop and move a couple of gates protecting the SLTR before proceeding through.  There's been talk over the years of WestRail Group taking over the UP spur operations with a connection built adjacent to the industrial park crossing.  However, this has yet to come to pass and for now operations by the UP on the spur continue.

Well, that's the premise of my WestRail Group - Salt River Subdivision in N Scale.  Benchwork for the first phase, running from the interchange to the Sunland Industrial Park, is in place and track laying has begun.  Hopefully sometime this spring I'll be able to finish the trackwork and get operations on this segment started.  A second phase, encompassing the transload yard and a few more industries, will come later, with the final phase running out to the scrapyard at the end of the line coming last. 

Thanks for riding along!