The Kennecott Utah Copper rail line was an electric railroad in Salt Lake County, Utah. It was managed by the Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation and connected the Bingham Canyon Mine with its smelter at Garfield. The rail line has been replaced by a system of conveyors and a 17-mile-long (27 km) slurry pipeline. Current rail operations by Kennecott Utah Copper LLC only occur in the area of the smelter, on a remnant of what was a vast rail network.
The electric rail line replaced the Bingham and Garfield Railway (reporting mark B&G) (opened in 1911) in 1948. That earlier line was built for the same purpose, replacing the Bingham Branch and Garfield Beach Extension of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, which was not providing adequate service.
References
- Utah Department of Transportation (April 2015). Utah State Rail Plan (Report). Utah Department of Transportation. p. 56. Archived from the original on 2020-10-30. Retrieved May 20, 2017.
Kennecott's current rail operations are focused on the smelter adjacent to the south end of the Great Salt Lake, where Kennecott is served by UP and has access to BNSF through its agent Utah Railway.
- Railway Equipment and Publication Company, The Official Railway Equipment Register, June 1917, p. 792
- R. A. LeMassena (1974). Rio Grande ... to the Pacific!. Sundance Publications. ISBN 0-913582-09-3., pp. 123-125
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