Rail Transportation, Storage, and Transloading at the center of Utah’s industrial corridor – Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railway
YOUR SOURCE FOR MODERN, CUSTOMER-FOCUSED RAIL-SERVICE FACILITIES IN THE SALT LAKE CITY AREA – THE CROSSROADS OF THE WEST.
Strategically located at the center of Utah’s industrial corridor.
For over 125 years the Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railway (SLGW) has served the short line rail needs of companies moving rail freight through the Salt Lake Valley. Served by both Union Pacific (UP) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), SLGW provides efficient, flexible, and affordable options to customers that need material handling, railcar storage, maintenance, and other essential local services.
Recipient of Andeavor’s Supplier Recognition Award for Innovation and Value Delivery
Who We Are
The Salt Lake, Garfield & Western Railway Company (SLGW) was formed in 1891 with local and regional rail lines serving the Salt Lake City valley. In continuous operations for over 125 years, today is a Class III short-line railroad company that serves the local rail transfer, rail storage, and rail-served warehouse requirements of a wide range of customers who are moving commodities into and out of the Greater Salt Lake City area. With 16 miles of track and numerous facilities located in the center of Utah’s industrial corridor, SLGW is strategically located within the northwest quadrant of Salt Lake City. This puts our facilities and services adjacent to interstate rail lines, major north-south and east-west interstate highways, and the Salt Lake International Airport. As a short line railroad, SLGW is dual served with handling carrier agreements in place with Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Union Pacific Class 1 mainline interstate railroads.
SLGW’s infrastructure and facilities as well as its diverse services make it a key player in attracting rail-served customers and industrial development to the Salt Lake City area.
SLGW prides itself on exemplary customer service with a long history of reliability and professionalism, which is why customers from across the U.S. trust SLGW to provide its local rail service needs.
Railcar Storage
With a capacity for 700-plus cars, SLGW’s railcar storage operations are focused on safety and security to ensure that your assets remain in excellent condition. Interchanging with Class I railroads we can offer flexible terms and services with competitive rates.
Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railway provides its customers with safe, cost-effective, and responsive railcar storage and switching options within the Greater Salt Lake City area. Whether it’s empty or loaded cars, or long-term or short-term storage, our 700-plus railcar storage capacity is distributed across a variety of locations to provide you with the specific railcar storage solutions you require. Our storage operations are focused on care, safety and efficiency, not only to ensure your cars and materials are stored in excellent condition but that these assets are moved to and from our storage facilities in a way that meets your schedule.
With Class I mainline connections and interchange agreements with both Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, SLGW is able to efficiently access and deliver your cars and commodities for storage and warehousing—and we do so with flexible terms and services at competitive rates. In addition, we provide our customers with complete transloading services when highway transportation services are part of your logistics requirements.
When you contact SLGW, our team will work closely with your team to determine the best storage location(s) in consideration of your railcar quantity, car types, commodity types, and storage duration. SLGW locations are designed to safely store both hazardous and non-hazardous commodities, including petroleum products.
All railcar and material storage arrangements are confirmed by written agreements. These can be daily rate agreements or can take the form of a take-or-pay agreement, which guarantees you storage space within the SLGW system.
Transloading
SLGW has a variety of transloading facilities that handle nearly any type of material, whether standard or combustible/flammable. Our wide range of transloading services allow customers to consolidate freight to save on inland distribution and transportation costs.
Strategically located in the Greater Salt Lake City area, the two transloading facilities of Salt Lake Garfield and Western Railway are adjacent to two critical interstate highway arteries, I-15 going north and south, and I-80 going east and west. In addition, Salt Lake City is a major crossroads area for Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railways with whom we have Class 1 interchange agreements. This gives our customers the ability to efficiently transfer bulk rail-shipped commodities to and from drop sites in and around this important geographical region, thus speeding delivery time while saving on inland supply chain distribution costs. SLGW offers a range of transloading services at some of the lowest costs in the area.
SLGW commonly provides transloading for a wide variety of materials, including: aggregates, cement, plastics, petroleum products, lumbers and steels. In addition, we are able to accommodate transloading for many others materials upon request. Our two transloading facilities are designed to safely handle combustible/flammable materials.
The transloading process is as follows: A loaded or empty railcar is shipped from its origin and is routed to the care of SLGW for transloading placement. Many railcars are purpose-built for the commodity being hauled and our facilities can handle any type of railcar. The freight car is then received by SLGW, where under a track license and transloading agreement the railcar is spotted or placed in the designated transload area for the materials transfer. Customers also have the option to store their railcars on-site until needed. Additional details about railcar storage can be found in our car storage agreement.
Contact
Headquarters:
Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railway
5215 Wiley Post Way Suite # 150
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
Mike Candella
Operations Manager
Mobile: (360) 355-7154
Office: (360) 501-2188
mike.candella@patriotrail.com
Customer Service Contact:
Phone: 1 (855) 955-RAIL (7245)
Fax: (904) 423-5388
Email: SLGW-CS@patriotrail.com
Business Development Contact:
Tom Naso
AVP Sales
Mobile: (904) 654-0147
Office: (904) 654-0147
tom.naso@patriotrail.com
Location
Salt Lake City, Utah
SLGW Map
CONNECTING RAILROADS:
Union Pacific @ Salt Lake City, UT
BNSF @ Salt Lake City, UT
Primary Commodities Handled:
Fuel-related products; forest products such as pulp, paper, lumber, and construction materials, bulk commodities such as aggregate, chemicals, and plastics, metals, various food commodities, commuter railcars
To report a non-service related emergency, please call 1-855-258-4514.
HISTORY
The Saltair Railway was incorporated on September 6, 1891 with its initial rail line running westward from Salt Lake City to the Saltair Resort on the shores of the Great Salt Lake to accommodate the local residents and tourists that would be flocking to the resort, which officially opened on June 8,1893. During the first half of the 20th century he resort proved to be a hugely popular recreation destination for residents of Salt Lake City, and became railway’s largest source of revenue with trains of 12-16 passenger cars departing to (and returned from) Saltair every 45 minutes. The line not only carried passengers to Saltair, but it also became a conduit for freight to the mines at Garfield, Utah in the Oquirrh Mountains west of Salt Lake, as well as the Morton Salt processing facility located on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.
In April of 1892 the Saltair Railway was renamed the Salt Lake & Los Angeles Railroad, because its owners at the time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which also owned the Saltair resort), wanted to extend the line westward and southward to Los Angeles. In 1895 the SLLA Railway opened its main facility at 1201 W. South Temple, which is still in use today. In later years, the Saltair resort and the SLLA Railway was acquired by the Snow family, and in the early 1960s, the Railroad was acquired by the Hogle family.
For its first quarter century of its operations, the SLGW was a steam engine line, but in 1916 the railway began the process of electrifying the railroad, a project that was completed in 1919. The Garfield station was built by SLGW approximately one mile from the the town of Garfield so it could serve the copper smelters in the western valley and provided faster freight and commuter services for the growing copper industry in that area. The line continued service on the Garfield branch until the 1930’s, but for decades afterward provided service for Morton Salt and other industrial customers from Salt Lake City to the shores of the Great Salt Lake.
In the 1920s, the Great Salt Lake began to steadily recede and in 1933 it reached its lowest recorded level in recorded history, stranding the Saltair Beach Resort from the waterline. As the century progressed the attendance number decreased steadily, so in order to make up for the loss of patronage due to the low water levels, a roller coaster was constructed and SLGW built a short rail line from the pavilion using gasoline-powered speeders to carry patrons across the ½ mile of newly exposed brine flat to the water.
As World War II approached, attendance continued to decline, until the resort eventually shut down to maintain the war effort. After the war ended and the resort reopened it faced many obstacles: in 1955 a fire consumed the bath houses and in 1957 the roller coaster burned down. The resort finally closed for good in 1959, and the Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railway ceased passenger operations, focusing entirely on short line rail services for freight customers.
In 1951 the line purchased its first GE 44-tonner diesel, and four short years later a head-on collision forced the railroad to lease a GE centercab diesel from U.S Steel to continue its operations. This marked the end of electric operations on the Salt Lake Garfield & Western.
Today the railroad continues to haul freight along its 16 miles of track to rail-served warehouses with additional sidings for railcar storage, transloading, rail railcar cleaning and other rail-related services.