GARTNEY

GARTNEY

Established Station: March 1, 1888

Formally Abandoned: July 30, 1957

Milepost: 678 miles from San Francisco

Named after nearby Gartney Mountain, Gartney Station was on the SP mainline from San Francisco to Ogden between Tecoma, Nevada and Lucin, Utah. Tracks were laid through that area in March 1869. It was likely not a regular maintenance station as were Lucin and Tecoma, which lay about 12 miles apart from one another. Rather, it was established as an important link in locomotive operations as well as operating as a freight station. Its operational role was likely as an engine turning facility for helper engines assisting trains moving westward up Gartney Hill. There is a 1.3 percent grade between Lucin and Montello.1

The earliest date known for operations at Gartney is 1888 when it is written in the station list between Tecoma and Utah Line. 2 After that the name is printed. It is likely that sometime during the 1890s, perhaps even when it was established, a turntable was built there to turn helper engines. A newspaper article concerning a fatal accident confirms that a turntable existed at Gartney, at least as early as 1898. From the Ogden Daily Standard of 1898:

... Early in the morning an engine ran off the Gartney turntable 37 miles west of Terrace, near Tecoma. The engineer and fireman barely escaped with their lives, and the engine plowed down the steep bank and buried itself in the sand. A large gang went to work at the wreck and a wrecking train went out from Terrace. [Jack] Rouse [General Foreman] and [Peter] Meaden [mechanic] were of the party and were deep in the work all day. The engine had been blocked up and at about 5:30 p.m. a rope, passed under the trucks and looped through an eye; an engine was attached to pull the truck up, when the strain proved too great for the rope and it broke. The brake released the end of the rope in which was the loop; in the loop was a steel eye, and this eye flew out and struck these two men, breaking Meaden's skull over the right eye, and crushing in the back of Rouse's head.

The facts were wired to Ogden, and ... a special [was sent] out from Ogden with Dr. Perkins and nurses. The specials were of no avail, however as Meaden died at 6:05 and Rouse at 6:30, before the train reached Terrace .... 3

SP Station lists show a turntable still in operation at Gartney in 1907, but it seems to have been removed by 1908. 4

A number of train wrecks occurred on Gartney Hill over the years, the worst seems to have been in 1907 when a number of men were killed on the job and many lawsuits filed of which SP lost on most if not all. For instance, Mary R. Schuler received $9,000 from a lawsuit against the Southern Pacific for the death of her husband, a mail clerk killed in the January 1907 wreck.5

The line from Montello to Lucin was double tracked in 1911, reducing the grade which:

... eliminated westbound helpers on Gartney Hill, two miles of 1.3 percent grade near Tulasco. The new westbound line was separated from the old line and followed creek up a gentle 0.6 percent grade through Grouse, effecting quite a savings on helpers. 6

Beginning in 1890, Gartney was a Class A Freight Station. It continued as such, even adding a platform in 1913, until it was abandoned in 1957. On SP Employee Timetables Gartney is first listed in 1890 with 2500 ft of siding and a telephone.8

Between 1906 and 1938, Gartney is maintained as a regular stop for between four and eight daily passenger trains and up to eight daily freight trains. Its siding length increases to 3,346 ft in 1909, and then to 140 car lengths in 1915, 133 in 1919. It then drops to a spur track with 20 car lengths by 1934.9 By 1940, Gartney is no longer a stop for passenger trains through to the end of its life as a station. The spur track is reduced to 23 car lengths in 1941.10

Newspaper accounts surrounding Gartney:

From the Salt Lake Herald-Republican 1900:

Wreck Near Gartne~ Utah. A wreck occurred this afternoon on the Southern Pacific near Gartney siding, 151 miles west of Ogden, and twenty-eight miles west of Terrace. Five cars went in the ditch, one woman was killed and fourteen persons injured.

The wreck occurred about 1:30 o'clock, mountain time. The train was running at about forty-five miles an hour and at the place where the accident happened there is a down grade and a four degree curve. As the train struck the curve, report has it, the outer rail broke loose, and the smash-up came at once. There was a Burlington excursion on the train, occupying two tourist sleepers. There was no mail car, and the engine, express and baggage cars in front stuck to the track, and also two tourist sleepers on the rear end.

The other tourist sleepers two coaches and one Pullman went off the track. News of the wreck reached Ogden about 2 o'clock .... Chief Clerk Sheary took charge, and arranged for a special train of three coaches to run to the scene, with engine 1100 .... Returning, the special train was delayed first by a freight train breaking in two on Promontory hill, and again at Corrinne ... The special train arrived at 2 a.m. [in Ogden]. 11

Newspaper accounts surrounding Gartney:

From the Inter-Mountain Republican 1907:

Southern Pacific Train Jumps Track. Running at a speed of eighty miles an hour, and two hours behind its schedule time, No. 10, the fast mail on the Southern Pacific, left the rails at Gartney, a small station 107 miles west of Ogden, between Tecoma and Lucin, at about 6 o'clock this morning, and dealt death and injury to passengers and trainmen.

Engineer Frank Neesley ... was instantly killed beneath his engine. Fireman G. L. Ware was badly burned and scalded, Mail Clerk J.J. Clark sustained serious, if not fatal, injuries, and nineteen others, trainmen and passengers, were more or less injured by being bruised and scalded ..... Engineer Neesley was just completing his first trip on the fast mail, and in view of the fact that he was two hours behind schedule time, he was permitting his engine to roll along at a merry clip on a down-hill strip of track. The wreck occurred almost at the bottom of the hill and at just a slight curve in the road. It is not known just what caused the derailment, although a rigid examination is being made by officials. A broken rail or a broken wheel might have been the cause. No. 10 was made up of two mail cars, one baggage car filled with through mail from Oakland to Omaha, diner and four standard Pullmans. The entire train, with the exception of the last two Pullmans, left the rails with the locomotive. The mail and baggage cars were almost totally demolished, and the mail was scattered all along the right of way . ....

No sooner had word been received here than preparations were made to send out the wrecker and a corps of physicians .... A number of railroad officials left for the scene of the wreck on a special and did everything in their power to alleviate the pain for the injured and in clearing away the wreckage .... Eye-witnesses in the terrible affair state that the locomotive turned completely over and that the cars plunged headlong through the engine until the heavy diner was reached. All of these cars were smashed into kindling wood and the diner was demolished as if it had been a cigar box ... 12

The following was an important development for both Lucin and Gartney. It likely eliminated the need for helper engines between the two points and greatly reduced Gartney's usefulness as a station. From the Ogden Evening Standard 1909:

New Grade over Gartney Hill. Contracts have just been let to the Utah Construction company for the building of a second track on the Southern Pacific line between Lucin and Tecoma, a distance of twelve miles. The grade work on this section of the double track project will probably start within the next ten days.

The double tracking of the Southern Pacific line between these two points will be different from the regulation method of double tracking inasmuch as the two tracks will not be exactly parallel but will run apart from each other a distance of from half a mile to more than a mile. The present track will be used for east bound trains and the second track for trains westbound. In the old track there is a very heavy grade, ascending westward, over Gartney hill. To escape this grade the second track will be built north of the summit which will reduce the ascent to a grade of four tenths.

This small grade will do away with the necessity of the extra engines which are now used as helpers between Lucin and Montello. The westbound line will extend along Grouse creek and at one point will be a little more than a mile north of the eastbound right-of-way . .... 13

1 Don Strack, "Gartney Station", Online resource, https://utahrails.net/sp/sp-in-utah-stations.php (accessed 10-18-20). 2 Southern Pacific Company, List of Officers, Agencies and Stations, On file Sacramento: California State Railroad Museum Library, 1888. 3 Ogden Daily Standard, "Railway Men Killed", August 25, 1898, 5. 4 Southern Pacific Company, List of Officers, Agencies and Stations, 1907-1908. 5 Salt Lake Herald-Republican, "Widow gets $9,000,"

August 21, 1908. 6 John R. Signor, Southern Pacific's Salt Lake Division

(Berkeley: Signature Press, 2007), 92. 7 Southern Pacific Company, List of Officers, Agencies and Stations, 1890-1956; Southern Pacific Company, Station Changes List, n.d. on file at Sacramento: California State Railroad Museum Library. s Signor, Southern Pacific's Salt Lake Division, 63.

Southern Pacific Company, Salt Lake Division, Employees' Time Table 4, February 1st, 1905, (Ogden: Southern Pacific Company). 9 Southern Pacific Company, [Salt Lake Division Employee's Timetable] (Ogden: Southern Pacific Company, 1941, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949). 10 Ibid. Strack, Gartney. 11 Salt Lake Herald-Republican, "Wreck Near Gartney,"

September 28, 1900, 1. 12 Inter-Mountain Republican, "Southern Pacific Train Jumps Track," January 15, 1907, 1. 13 Ogden Evening Standard, "New Grade over Gartney Hill," May 9, 1909, 6.