Helper - Least Used Amtrak Station in Utah
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- The TRUE least used station in Utah...none of those Green River shenanigans!
Helper on Parade (the film reel shown in the museum): vimeo.com/162424427
Subscribe to Geoff Marshall - he's the inspiration for this project (and you might see a special guest in his newest video...)! / @geofftech2
Spreadsheet of all the stations: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
0:00 - On the Train to Helper
1:44 - Helper Station Review
7:20 - Exploring Helper
Patreon: / milesintransit
Twitter: / milesintransit1
Facebook: / milesintransit
Website: milesintransit.com/Helper - Least Used Amtrak Station in Utah 
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I’ll always be a city dweller but the allure and history and culture of small-town America cannot be understated. This series does a great job showcasing that
Agreed! This series helps us understand the perspective of small-town America and why trains are so important, especially to these people. To us at first glance, they're least-used but you actually see these places, you understand the bigger picture. One of my favorite small towns is Bordentown, NJ which I visited back in 2010. Colonial, peaceful, walkable, and there's a River LINE station!
100%
Thanks so much, guys!
Driving between Denver and Salt Lake City gave me the opportunity to see small towns like this.They are unique and special places, especially with this kind of scenery everywhere like in an old Western! I didn't make a stop in Helper but next time I will.
I live in San Francisco but will be staying in Helper this spring. My great-great uncle was one of the founders here. He worked with the trains but there was iron mining here back in the day. Lots of bars and brothels too
I'm late to the party, but I'm always glad to know my photos help people out.
I can't believe the passcode "1234" didn't open that door, smh
should have tried 0000
TV show villain: You can't stop me! I added a code-
The code:
The bowling music is so you btw, phenomenal job. Not sure if you told Miles to add it but glad you did it!
That's the code an idiot would have on his luggage!
That sequence was ALL Jackson, including the fake credits! I just put the shots in!
And now the question is, will Helper continue to be the least used station after the influencer effect takes hold after this video begins to circulate.
Seriously, Helper should be a sponsor
jet lag yairo station 2???
How on earth does this station get less riders than Green River? When i passed tgat station, that place looked like the Walking Dead
"Welcome to the Miles in Transit cinematic universe" I'm honored to be a part of this universe as well! Come for the review of a random station in Utah and the scenery, stay for the soothing bowling session, AMOGUS, and Geoff roast session! I do indeed love it when a mountain goes *"bwoh".* The station was originally built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1881, but the current building was built much later. Beginning in 1983, both the Desert Wind (which went between Chicago and LA) and the Pioneer (between Chicago and Seattle) previously stopped at Helper. Service to Helper by the Pioneer was dropped when that train was rerouted through Wyoming in 1991, and was later discontinued altogether in 1997.
Utah is called the Beehive State because Mormon pioneers saw the beehive as the perfect metaphor for their industriousness and hard work. When they trekked out West, they discovered that the land did not have many sweeteners besides honey. Utah began importing European honeybees from the East and eventually, many bees populated the state. Brigham Young wanted to call the area that the Latter-day Saints settled in “Deseret,” which means honeybee in the language of the Jaredites. When the territory became a state, it was named after the Ute tribe instead of the bee connection. Later, in 1959, Utah would become the Beehive State, hearkening back to the history of Latter-day Saint pioneers. Ute was believed to have meant "people of the mountains", but that's not actually true as the Ute call themselves Noochee/Núuchi-u, simply meaning "the people". This "people of the mountains" meaning has been attributed to the Pueblos and the Apache word Yuttahih, which means 'one that is higher up'. What we know is the Spanish called the Ute "Yuta" and thus, it was Anglicized into Utah.
Kim Jong-un, you are delightful! Honestly why do people doubt your leadership?
The California Zephyr is quite the trip, and Utah's blessed scenery is a part of the reason why! Yup, 1:16 is the Castle Gate! A rock formation featuring two sheer sandstone walls on the sides of the Price River! And the FRA car at 20:13 is a track inspection car, saw it back in 2021 on the LIRR! Definitely a treat to see it! Despite the PRR-style paint job, it was built by Pullman Standard in 1954. Helper got its name because of trains and geography. Helper is at the mouth of the Price Canyon and on the east side of the Wasatch Plateau. Trains traveling westward towards Salt Lake City required additional "helper" engines in order to make the steep 15-mile climb to Soldier Summit. That station building has been there since 1940. Helper became a population center back in the 1880s when the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad came to town. The railroad built nearly 30 residences by 1887, and more were later built.
The goal was to make Helper a freight terminal and in 1892, it was the division point between the eastern and western D&RGW terminals in Grand Junction and Ogden. Unlike the other mining towns in the area, Helper’s growth was initially quite slow. Buildings in Helper weren’t lit by electricity until 1895. Chinese laborers were brought in early to work, and later came Italians and people from the Balkans like Serbians and Croatians. After a coal miner strike between 1903 and 1904, Italians were blacklisted from the nearby Castle Gate mines, and so they ventured into Helper to establish new businesses and farms, accelerating its growth.
Thanks, I was very curious about that FRA car, never seen it before and it looks very nice
Avery Ive seen your posts literally everywhere for years. I don't even seek you out you just have the same algorithm as me lol.
Y'all are one transit nerd away from forming a transit focused barbershop quartet. I'll gladly be the fourth lol
The whole "The Big Lebowski" hommage is on another level
Thank you!!
Thanks for stopping in Helper. Most people skip it on their way to Moab.
I love Helper!!!! Anytime I'm on a road trip south I stop there and discover something new. They have a nice walking path and all sorts of mysteries.
This is genuinely one of the greatest episodes in the series when it comes to town reviews. It's great to see the extensive history behind all of Amtrak's stops, especially the small ones, since you never know what gems they contain.
Thank you so much!
I really liked how the whole community has made a small town do fun and interesting. If not for them it may just have been another anonymous small town.
I really love how you are genuinely into each of the little towns you visit. Your enthusiasm is infectious and helps us remember to appreciate the things we discover.
Thank you so much!
Our family lived in Helper in 1994, my late husband moved us there for logging believe it or not. Our daughter was in 4th and our son in 3rd and they Loved school there! They also loved the pool, the Bingo at the church, the Christmas activities. But our favorite was the Dinosaur museum in Price, a few miles farther. It's near the Skinwalker Ranch and has been used in movies. Unfortunately there were NO jobs.
Wow! That must have been before all the artists moved in, right?
My Great-Great uncle was the first stake president in Helper. I love it there and Price too
Love that this was recommended to me out of nowhere. I actually grew up in Price. To anyone interested in visiting Helper, try to go during the annual Helper Arts Festival that happens around August!
Cant wait for Geoff video next week
I reckon this is the best Least Used video yet, you're able to convey well how absolutely gorgeous the location is
Thank you so much!! I was worried we didn't make it clear enough how pretty it was, but the shots kinda speak for themselves in this case.
I went up here to visit family in Kenilworth all the time as a kid. I wasn't able to visit for a while because I got in a bad car wreck on the way up there, but last year I was finally able to go back. I'm very glad to have seen this video. It's beautiful up there and it makes me happy to see it again.
Such a beautiful town!
I stayed here in 2020 on a road trip!! Incredible bowling alley here.
The FRA car you saw was DOTX221, which is an ex-Pullman that now gets used as a sensor car to keep an eye on track conditions. I'm personally a bigger fan of DOTX216, which is an ex-Amfleet car, which makes it the most stealthy of the ATIP cars, at least until the Airo/Venture set gets brought into service.
Um, I would like to move here now. This is one of my favorite videos you've ever done!
It was an amazing place - thank you so much!
Wow I now want to visit Helper Utah! Great video.
Thank you!
Grew up In those towns (Price/Helper) Nice to see some tourists enjoying it.
So nice of Jason Alexander to make a cameo during your bowling outing 🥰
The markings on the rail saying “Provo” and “Green River” are the Subdivision names there. Helper is where they end
Ohhh, that's interesting! That makes sense for a yard to be the dividing line there.
I live 1.5 hours from Helper, and had no idea how awesome it is. I am def gonna stop there next time I'm headed down that way. Thanks guys!
That's amazing to hear, thank you so much!
This Was Just A Fabulous Video. And Hats Off To All Of You In Giving The Details Of That Wonderful Town. As A Older Guy I Can Remember The Charm Of These Little Towns, That Sadly Are Mostly Gone Now. Thanks So Much From San🌴Diego.
I'd totally take Amtrak just to visit Helper after seeing this. Nice job. Also, I loved the Trip Report song, but love the Diner song even more. I can't wait to find my next new favorite. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much!
Best series (on par with geoguessr how not to travel) on youtube continues
WOW, that's high praise! Geowizard's stuff is amazing! Thank you!
If I had to live in a small town I would want it to be like helper, beautiful natural background and lots of cool history and art!
Hey Miles, this is one of my favorite videos on RUclips. Thanks for making this and everything you do.
Thank you so much!!
Great video of a charming small town. So much stood out on this video: the scenery, the architecture, the cars & gas stations. So why is it that the part of the video that made the biggest impression on me is my surprise at seeing Jackson, an adult, dining a big glass of milk?
Surprising that its less used than Green River. Great documentary on this beautiful town!
Thank you!
13:45: What you called a "Nuclear Locomotive" is a snowplow. It even has wing plows on either side to shove snow farther from the tracks. Those really cool "rotary" plows are only used as a last resort because they are infernally expensive to run. The fallout shelter sign next to it is coincidental.
Ah, noted! Does it get snowy up here in the winter?
@@MilesinTransit - I'm sure you are only joking. Helper, UT is at the base of Soldier Summit grade. The pass is named after soldiers that deserted the U.S. Army to try to join the Confederacy, but instead died in a snow storm.
But yes, usually ordinary locomotives can clear the track, but a big plow is necessary when the snow is too thick for the "snowplow pilot" on a locomotive.
I just watched the Big Labowski tonight before I watched this. The reference was well appreciated.
Perfect timing!
This place looks so great. Wonderful video. Great vibes.
Thank you!
clicked on this video so fast, very excited for another least used station!
Very enjoyable video. Helper is on my list now.
I do an Americana trip to an area of the US I've never been to once a year with two of my friends. I am putting Helper in the running as a stop because this town looks so charming and full of history!
As a Brit I love how every small town in America has fantastic attractions and history, least used stations here serve tiny villages with about 5 people living in it so there's no point even leaving the station! I came to your channel from Geoff's video but been binge watching a lot of your content this past week and damn I underappreciated American transport, even if it's just as unreliable as it is over here, it sure is a lot more interesting
Thank you so much! I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that the UK has a much higher density of stations, so a lot of them end up just being in the middle of nowhere - a lot of US states only have so many stations to go around.
I read the bowling captions. Thanks for the information about Steely Dan. Welcome to Chili's. I didn't know Jason Alexander was bowling with you.
I grew up in Burry Port (UK). The station name is Pembrey & Burry Port (dating back to GWR). BP is a much larger town, but Pembrey had an earlier Post Office. Station name persists 150 yrs later ..
this was one of the most fun MIT videos i've seen, keep it up! cant wait for Virginia!
Thank you so much!
Looking forward to more western US stations!
I appreciated the Big Lebowski homage.
And Jason Alexander as George Constanza
Damn! So excited! Love a miles upload
what an amazing friendly positive trip report, loved it. I wish all least-used amtrak stations would have this kind of happy vlog! :D
Thank you!
I love your channel so much! keep up the great work. :)
Thank you!!
17:31 - heyyyyyyy you took my catchphrase!
Don't worry, we call him out in our Montauk collab ;)
A callout, eh? Consider me intrigued!
Helper is a genuinely charming little town!
I love the music on this channel. Plus the nod to the menu shot song that this video was missing (there was even a menu to shoot)
I would've done it for the Balance Rock menu, but I would've felt weird zooming in on the family members of the restaurant owners - that was the only menu shot we got!
I love the Big Lebowski scene so much!
Thank you!!
I love this. Just some guys having a great day, what's better than that.
Thank you so much!
Helper locomotives are interesting, of course the best one is the Big Boy. The whistle is less like a train and more like “beware of the dragon.”
Not sure now since the terminal was replaced, but Salt Lake City Airport had great views of the mountains. (It kind of became my “well if I can’t fly there direct, I’ll just do a layover there” airport for whenever I was going to somewhere off the beaten track on the west coast.)
I keep feeling like there needs to be a restaurant called Hamburger Helper that serves hamburgers as a specialty. I like seeing small towns that are actually used and seemingly vibrant, and with really cool buildings as well.
A family friend of ours is involved in E Clampus Vitus, aka the Clampers. They maintain roadside historical markers and monuments, and apparently consume a decent amount of alcohol doing it.
This video was relevant to my interests.
I remember back in the 1980s when I took the old Amtrak Desert Wind from Los Angeles through Helper to Colorado....and it was not Utah's least used station. That was the flag stop at Thomson Springs, UT a flyspeck on the map East of Helper. Which in those pre-Internet ticket purchasing days, you stopped the train by turning on a signal light on the station platform.
Oh wow, that's insanely cool
Honestly surprised you didn't throw in a shoutout to Ned Lamont in the bowling sequence
Helper seems like a pretty cozy and fun town tho, will have to check it out one day
I try to shout out Ned at every opportunity, but what does he have to do with bowling?
Never thought I'd hear Miles talk about brothels. He's too innocent
I'm loving the least used Amtrak station series and this is one of your best episodes. Such fun, fast paced editing and great exposition of a really interesting small town! Congrats on the collab with Geoff Marshall too, that's huge.
It would be awesome if you made a video on how you edit your videos: what goes into cutting down all your footage into an entertaining short video, how you keep things moving with the cuts, and how you add in maps and graphics and sound effects, etc. I'm sure more people would be interested too! (It could perhaps be a Patreon exclusive if you like.) Just a suggestion!
Whoa, that's a really cool idea actually! I've seen people do "editing streams", maybe I could try that for a future video.
@@MilesinTransit Yes that would be perfect!
stopped here on the zephyr from Reno to Denver. felt mysterious! out in the middle of nowhere. helped that we stopped there in the middle of the night and the only people that stepped onto the platform were just having a smoke…
Cheers Miles & friends for this video! I was so fascinated, had to come visit.
Now about to have a meal at Balance Rock Eatery! 😊👍
WHOA, that's freaking awesome! I hope you had a great time there!
babe wake up, miles in transit dropped a new vid
great video that i havent seen yet! now back to the other video continuing the your amtrak journey on the zephyr. Thanks for giving us what it's like in Helper, UT... this series might increase tourism in the city huge. ;)
I think there's been at least one person who's visited because of this video, so I'll take it!
Omg is this a preview of a California Zephyr apparently a trip report
Maybe ;)
@@MilesinTransit I really hope so!
That was a surprisingly charming town, would have never been on my list of places to see, but now I’d quite like to visit
Small town New Deal era architecture and murals are the best. Both quitessentially small town America but also super working class and labour movement core.
You think nobody was reading the bowling montage text…
but I was. >:)
(Lovely episode in a lovely town I’m now determined to stop in sometime)
these videos convince me that, unlike a lot of college Americans who wanna go hike around europe as a graduation trip, I'd defs prefer to just kinda randomly choose towns along the cali zephyr and maybe a few other trips, see the country a bit after I finish my degree. IDK.
I'd have to find someone to convince to go with, and with my school being full of very rich stuck up people, thats uhh... no one.
wdym? Rich stuck-up persons could quite possibly be transit nerds!
It’s about time!!
You’re making me want to visit all these tiny towns out west 😂
The video was already awesome. But The Big Lebowski parody made it even better.
FINALLY!!!! Someone noticed 😍😍😍
@@JacksonBetzThe Miles in Transit abides. Lol
Btw, you did a good job with the Bob Dylan style singing.
There's nothing our friend Jackson can't do musically! Including, apparently, making me *like* a Bob Dylan song...
III wish your video came out earlier I was in Utah in late May to early June and not that far from Helper. Great Video!
Thank you!
If you ever make it to north Idaho, you must stop in Wallace at their mining museum. They have a casket on display for traffic light that they held a horse drawn carriage funeral for. It was the last traffic light on I-90 (as in Seattle to Boston) that ran through town, with a video playing the funeral. The town claims it's the center of the universe becuase "nobody can prove them wrong." The also rallied together to get every building I-90 was going to go over to become a historic site so they couldn't be torn down, now I-90 goes above the city and some buldings, pretty wild.. There also used to be brothels there until the 90s, and you can now Air B&B them.
Love the vids man! Keep it up.
Looks like a beautiful town - and it IS transit-accessible, it looks like!
Miles, i just started watching your videos yesterday. They're amazing! I couldn't think of who you remind me of, but it finally hit me that you're a dead ringer for Bob Colacello.
Thank you so much! I don't know who Bob Colacello is, but anyone who hangs out with Andy Warhol has to be cool, so I appreciate it!
These videos make me want to visit small towns
Hey Miles In Transit I would like to meet you one day when you are in Philadelphia PA I enjoy watching your videos they crack me up.
The optimal least used station video! Leave it to artists to fix and save a town from desolation. And as usual Jackson's music is perfect. Thank you for another great video!
Thank you so much!
11:50 my grandma has that exact canyon painting in her house, nothing important really just shocked to see it somewhere else!
Yes!! I was hoping you would do a video about helper. My aunt and uncle live in Price so we have gone to helper many times.
The Big Lobowski reference was great.
20:00 this is a majestic shot
That mountain backdrop over the entire town was stunning!
*I* read the graphics! They were hilarious!
I’m halfway though my USA rail pass tour and I’ll also be making a 24 hour stop in helper next week! Looking forward to cheap food, will be a relief after SF.
you should screw with the data points, find a "least used station" and get like 30-40 people in a group to go there all at once and throw off the data
That would be fun to do with Laurel Racetrack, Maryland - I can't actually find yearly ridership for it, but the average weekday ridership is 0! Same with Jessup, a couple stations up the line.
@@MilesinTransit do it! Found out my city is using ridership numbers to decide which lines to cut, so now we are figuring out which lines are in danger and planning to boost their stats a little 😉
Helper does up the main drag for christmas every year too.
What a cool stop! I love the commitment to art and vintage cars and vintage gas stations.
love there videos miles! keep on chugging!!
Fun fact, this is also the closest train station to Skinwalker Ranch.
You have the best friends, the best adventures, and the best ideas when you are visiting the least visited Amtrak stations. Thank you!!!
Thank you!
I just love that you guys pulled up in a small town in Utah and started asking questions and people let you in to show you around!
The people were SO friendly and excited to show us their amazing town!
Your cover of Bob Dylan over the bowling montage really tied the whole video together man
All credit goes to Jackson for that one! He did an incredible job!
This town has the best aspects and charms of small town America. Shows you don't have to go to a big city or tourist hot spot either to have a good time.
This town reminds me of Radiator Springs from "Cars."
Steely Dan is so good and yes I do read those.
The balanced rock eatery used to be a furniture store and a shake bar. My uncle John put the museum together.
Helper seems like a cool place, so I will probably visit whenever I do a train trip on the CZ.
Also at 3:56, I noticed on the left they had an old DRGW Motor Transport trailer.
Yay you made it to utah!
I went and found the Geoff Marshall video. It was released 11 months ago! Wow you are super quick at releasing videos. 😂
Oh, there is so much stuff buried in the backlog...this one got jumped to the front of the queue because I'll be IN one of his videos soon!
@@MilesinTransit wow! Time to get to work pumping out videos then. 😂 Or maybe higher some resources to help the process.
Love the videos, keep up the good work.
@@ericroe I'd much rather have a slowish weekly output than hire out the editing honestly - I wouldn't trust my babies with anyone else!