Bumping Post
ClassicTrainsMag.com 91Gateway to the
Great Salt Lake
Utah interurban Salt Lake, Garfield & Western began
operations in 1893 as a steam road with the grand name Salt
Lake & Los Angeles. It ran straight as an arrow along Salt Lake
City’s east-west base line from a terminal on the west side of
town 15 miles to Saltair, a resort with a huge pavilion on the
Great Salt Lake. In 1916 the road adopted the SLG&W name, fol-
lowed by electrification in 1919, construction of a 2-mile branch
to Garfield, and purchase of Saltair from the Mormon church.
Despite its seasonal nature, passenger business to the resort
accounted for about two-thirds of the road’s revenue. SLG&W
dieselized in 1951 with two GE 44-tonners and an ex-Aberdeen
& Rockfish motor car. Passenger service, already waning, ended
in 1959 when the Saltair pavilion burned, but SLG&W is still in
business as a freight short line. Above, after a day at the resort,
passengers board one of the Saltair Route’s home-built trailer
cars on August 31, 1950. Four days later, on the last day of the
1950 season, two of the line’s six 1918 McGuire-Cummings
combine motors prepare to depart the pavilion. Saltair-bound
passengers bought their tickets at a modest structure located at
the line’s terminal a half-mile from downtown Salt Lake City.
Top and middle right, Fred Matthews; right, Donald Sims