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Be My Escape

"Be My Escape" is a song by American Christian rock band Relient K. It was released in November 2004 as the lead single from their fourth full-length album, Mmhmm (2004). The song was their first entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 82 and is usually referred to as Relient K's most popular mainstream song, other than "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been". The song is Relient K's fourth most popular song on iTunes. The song was certified gold in the US on October 5, 2005.

"Be My Escape" was featured in the 2006 Men's U.S. Open Tennis Championship, with the song's opening guitar solo playing as the event headed into a commercial.

Song
The song is the singer's plea for "escape" from his past mistakes. Although the lyrics avoid directly mentioning God, given the band's Christian background and some of the themes in the song, it is usually taken to refer to Him. "Be My Escape" uses guitars, drums, and keyboards, and the pace is varied effectively to give a sense of longing and desperation. The last forty seconds or so are a slow epilogue, with no instruments other than the drums, vibraphone and piano.

The song's lyrics at the beginning of the verses are often mistaken. Many have thought the first lines of the two verses to be "I'm giving up, I'm giving up slowly" and "I'm giving up, I'm doing this alone now". The actual lines from the beginning of the first two verses are "I've given up on givin' up slowly" and "I've given up on doing this alone now".

An acoustic version of the song was released in November 2005 on the Apathetic EP. It included the addition of a mandolin.

The song has more or less been in every position of Relient K's set list since the band started performing it. From the release of Mmhmm until October 2005, the song was mainly played a little past the halfway point of the band's set. For the Panic With A K Tour in October 2005, it and "I So Hate Consequences" were the encore songs in that order. From the Matt Hoopes Birthday Tour in February 2006 through the 06 festival season, it was the opening song. The band moved it to the second song for the 2006 Nintendo Fusion Tour. For basically all of 2007, it was included in a three-song encore of "Sadie Hawkins Dance", "Be My Escape", and "I So Hate Consequences". In 2008, it once again become the band's opening song, with a slightly modified opening to include a little more guitar and drums before the song really begins. The song was moved to second in the set list for the November and December 2008 Winter Wonder Slam Tour with TobyMac. For some 2009 shows so far, it has been near the end of the set.

Music video

The music video shows the band playing in a room where the walls are slowly closing in on them. At the end, a burst of light appears and the walls of the room fall down, but away from the band. The band then plays in an open field with the album cover's sunflowers in it, with the background shot on a blue screen. Lead singer Matt Thiessen has been quoted as being a little unhappy with it, claiming that the band wanted more animation other than clouds. The moving walls were simply stagehands pushing them inwards. Still, they did not complain about the video other than Thiessen's one mention of those details. Some fans wondered about the inclusion of a girl in this video when the song has Christian themes, but others have pointed out that it still works as it could be asking Jesus for escape from a problem with the girl in the video. This video was the first Relient K music video to feature bassist John Warne and guitarist Jon Schneck.

In addition, the piano solo at the end of the song was removed in the video, and an extra vocal line was added during the second and third refrains to add to the harmony. The opening guitar riff was also shorter, repeated only once instead of thrice unlike the original song. Exclusions visually include Dave Douglas singing background vocals, and Matt Thiessen playing the piano. The music video was directed by Charles Jensen and produced by Rachel Curl.

Awards
The song was nominated for two Dove Awards at the 37th GMA Dove Awards: Pop/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year and Short Form Music Video of the Year.

Track listing
US promo CD
 * 1) "Be My Escape" (radio edit) – 3:12

Credits

 * Matt Thiessen – lead vocals, guitar, piano
 * Matt Hoopes – guitar
 * Dave Douglas – drums, backing vocals
 * Brian Pittman – bass

title: Be My Escape


text:
Saunton

Saunton is a village located approximately two miles from Braunton on the North Devon coast in the South West of England.

Several kilometres long, the village borders Braunton Burrows, the heart of North Devon's Biosphere Reserve, the first "new style" UNESCO-designated Biosphere Reserve. Its beach Saunton Sands is part of the Taw-Torridge Estuary.

In 1994 termites, of the species Reticulitermes grassei, were identified in two bungalows in Saunton. Anecdotal evidence suggests the infestation could date back 70 years before the official identification. In 1998 Termite Eradication Programme was set-up, with the intention of containing and eradicating the colony. In 2021 the UK’s Termite Eradication Programme announced the eradication of the colony, the first time a country has eradicated termites.

The Saunton Surf Life Saving Club is based here.

The South West Coast Path National Trail runs through the village, and gives access to walks along the rugged North Devon coast.

Saunton Down lies within the North Devon Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Served by Stagecoach 308 bus service between Barnstaple, Croyde and Georgeham

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Saunton


text:
Lotan Baba

Mohan Das, more commonly known as Lotan Baba (or "rolling saint") (ca. 1950 – September 2022) was an Indian holy man promoting peace by rolling his body along the ground when he travels. He claimed to have covered 30,000 km to various cities in India, including (the disputed territory of Kashmir), first setting off from his hometown Ratlam, in Madhya Pradesh. Witnesses report Mohan travelled on average roughly 10 to 12 kilometres (six to eight miles) a day rolling on the ground, at times smoking a cigarette while in motion. Media reports indicate Mohan Das began his life as a mystic after leaving home at age 12, and once undertook penance for 7 years by standing in one place and eating grass.

Mohan Das gained media attention in 2004 in his attempts to cross the border between Pakistan and India. Officials of the Border Security Force and immigration department near Wagah insisted he will need to acquire a passport and visa in order to continue his journey, of which he has neither. "I am not a politician who requires a passport or visa to visit another country. The government should understand that and give me permission," he said. Lotan Baba stated his intentions were to visit the Sikh shrine of Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of the first Sikh Guru Nanak Dev, and other religious places in Pakistan.

He held a Guinness record for longest rolling at about 9846 mi.

title: Lotan Baba


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Rune Hauge

Rune Hauge (born 23 April 1954) is a Norwegian football agent. Hauge represented John Jensen and Pål Lydersen during their transfers to Arsenal in the early 1990s. This would lead to Arsenal manager George Graham becoming embroiled in allegations that Hauge paid him a £425,000 "bung" to sign the players. Graham was later found guilty by the Football Association after admitting receiving an "unsolicited gift" and was suspended for a year. Before this, Hauge was involved in the signings of Andrei Kanchelskis and Peter Schmeichel for Manchester United.

Hauge was banned from operating as an agent for life by FIFA in 1995, but this was later reduced to two years' suspension of his licence. After he regained his licence, he went on to represent several Norwegian players including Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Steffen Iversen and Eirik Bakke. He was also involved in the transfer of Rio Ferdinand from West Ham United to Leeds United.

In 2005, he was involved in the transfer dispute between Manchester United and Chelsea over Mikel John Obi, claiming (along with others) that he had the right to represent Mikel.

Hauge's current clients include Norwegian midfielder Morten Gamst Pedersen.

title: Rune Hauge


text:
Spessart-Gymnasium Alzenau

The Spessart-Gymnasium Alzenau (or SGA) is a public scientific-technological, linguistic and humanistic gymnasium in Alzenau, Bavaria. It is named after the Spessart, a wooded range of hills which stretches about 60 kilometers east of the town.

The gymnasium was founded 1962 to address the need for higher education in the prospering area. It was renovated and expanded in the late 1990s and now has a stationary telescope.

Afternoon care
The school offers afternoon care with appropriately trained pedagogical professionals from the Albert-Schweitzer-Familienwerk Bayern. The students can eat warm food at the cafeteria, the afternoon care ends at 4 pm.

Student exchange programs
The Spessart-Gymnasium participates in student exchange programs with partner schools in Finland, Poland, France and Italy.

Awards

 * In 2017, the school joined the "Fairtrade-Schools" campaign.
 * Since 2018, the school is a member of "Schule ohne Rassismus – Schule mit Courage", a program that fights discrimination and racism.
 * In 2023, it received the title "Klimaschule Bronze" for special commitment in fighting climate change.

title: Spessart-Gymnasium Alzenau


text:
Everything Bad Is Good for You

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter is a non-fiction book written by Steven Johnson. Published in 2005, it details Johnson's theory that popular culture – in particular television programs and video games – has grown more complex and demanding over time and is making society as a whole more intelligent, contrary to the perception that modern electronic media are harmful or unconstructive. The book's claims, especially related to the proposed benefits of television, drew media attention. It received mixed critical reviews.

Johnson states that he aims to persuade readers of "two things:
 * 1) By almost all the standards we use to measure reading’s cognitive benefits — attention, memory, following threads, and so on — the nonliterary popular culture has been steadily growing more challenging over the past thirty years.
 * 2) Increasingly, the nonliterary popular culture is honing different mental skills that are just as important as the ones exercised by reading books."

Key concepts
Johnson challenges the precept that pop culture is deteriorating as a result of new media platforms. He derives the term Sleeper Curve from the Woody Allen film Sleeper, where "scientists from 2173 are astounded that twentieth-century society failed to grasp the nutritional merits of cream pies and hot fudge". He uses this to argue against contemporary perception of the deteriorating standards of pop culture, although Johnson is quick to point out that by no means does the Sleeper Curve imply that popular culture has become superior to traditional culture. Johnson utilizes the following media sources to support his argument:

Video games
He argues that the appeal of video games is not through their (possibly violent or sexual) content, but rather through the fact that the "structure" of the video games uniquely invites exploration and stimulates the reward centers of the brain. In pointing out arguments for the support of video games, Johnson sheds light on how kids can be more involved in games than in class, but this involvement can teach them that which could be taught in class. To substantiate this argument, he discusses how games and other virtual worlds have immediate rewards, whereas in reality, rewards can take a while to obtain. Johnson states “if you create a system where rewards are both clearly defined and achieved by exploring an environment, you’ll find human brains drawn to those systems, even if they’re made up of virtual characters and simulated sidewalks. It’s not the subject matter of these games that attracts…it’s the reward system”. Finally, he argues for the support of video games because they also require one to make decisions, whereas books and other forms of art may conjure up imagination and emotions but don't require decision-making.

Johnson acknowledges that although the video game industry is growing, the literature on the subject is limited at best. Johnson offers several sources for information on ludology; Ludology.org and seriousgames.org as well as the books Got Game by John Beck and Mitchell Wade and The Play Ethic by Pat Kane.

Television and film
Johnson admits that television and film demand less decision-making skills than video games, but also says that the benefits from reading (attention, patience, retention, the parsing of narrative threads, etc.) are making a rise in television and film as well, despite its lack of translating letters to meaning or activating the imagination in quite the same way that books do. He discusses three principles of television and film: "multiple threading," "flashing arrow," and "social networks." "Multiple threading", according to Johnson, is marrying complex narrative structure to complex subject matter with multiple plots and subplots (for example, he states that shows like ER & 24 have up to 10 threads per episode). He suggests too that modern television and films have reduced the number of "flashing arrows", narrative clues or signposts planted by the writer to help the audience understand the plot, and require audiences to do more cognitive work paying attention to background detail and information if they wish to follow what they are viewing. Finally, he states that "reality shows demand that we track multiple relationships, since the action of these shows revolves around the shifting feuds and alliances between more than a dozen individuals” Johnson says this activates social intelligence, defining it as “our ability to monitor and recall many distinct vectors of interaction in the population around us” and, thus, watchers shall be able to better understand social networks. He asserts that television is a "brilliant medium" for determining how skilled people are at understanding interpersonal connections, or their Autism Quotient (the higher a person's emotional intelligence, the lower their "AQ"), and that reality shows in particular realistically display the complexity of "social network maps" in human relations, where a group of people have complex and intertwined engagement.

Earlier television, Johnson says, simplified narrative and human relationships, while modern trends not only in reality shows but in "multiple threading" in scripted programs such as The Sopranos improve the audience's cognitive skills.

Later in the book, he mentions that these features of television are also prevalent in film, too.

The internet
Johnson argues that the internet “has challenged our minds in three fundamental and related ways: by being participatory, by forcing users to learn new interfaces, and by creating new channels for social interaction.” He uses blogs and utilizing Google to learn things as examples of participation. He declares that “accelerating pace of new platforms and software applications forces users to probe and master new environments” such as “learning the tricks of a new e-mail client, configuring the video chat software properly, getting your bearings after installing a new operating system.” Additionally, he points out that “in the past few years [the Web has] been [a tool] for augmenting social connection” naming “online personals, social and business network sites such as Friendster, the meetup.com service so central to the political organization of the 2004 campaign." Overall, he presents evidence to buttress the Internet's benefits.

Critical reception
The book has received mixed critical reviews. In a review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin was primarily negative, dismissing the book's "facile argument" and sparsity of hard evidence, saying that "The reader rattles around within the book's narrow universe and repeatedly bumps into the same thing: reiterations of Mr. Johnson's one big idea." In another, Walter Kirn, while acknowledging a lack of science and questioning some of the book's premises with regards to the benefits of reality TV, praised Johnson's "elegant polemic", concluding that "[c]onsidered purely on its own terms, Johnson's thesis holds up despite these quibbles."

Wired gave the book an overall positive review, describing it as "chock-full of interesting insights that are clearly the reflection of an agile and catholic intellect", but also suggested that the book is largely built around a straw man argument and thus "largely misses the point of the more valid critique of today's pop culture". The Guardian found part of Johnson's thesis — that some elements of pop culture have grown more complex — persuasive, but not the second claim that this greater complexity offers any tangible benefits for the public aside from preparing them to handle more complex pop culture; it criticized the shortage of hard science and the conclusions drawn from what science exists, as well as the application of literary theory to visual arts media. The Associated Press review praised the book overall as "an engaging read", although it noted that the book was uneven, with TV and video game discussions better than those on film and the internet, and repetitive in presenting its theme. Salon.com described it simply as "a fine contrarian defense of pop culture".

title: Everything Bad Is Good for You


text:
Star Wars Insider

Star Wars Insider is the official Star Wars magazine. It began in 1987 as the official magazine of The Lucasfilm Fan Club, and was renamed in 1994 to coincide with the release of Star Wars: TIE Fighter.

Its contents include stories, articles relating to the Star Wars universe, letters, and the fan newsletter "Bantha Tracks". In March 2008, Star Wars Insider reached one hundred issues.

Content
Star Wars Insider has sections that detail updates in the Star Wars universe, news about events, fan fiction, exclusive previews, articles that explore the Star Wars universe, questions and answers, excerpts from comics and books, and interviews. Often it has many humorous comics and stories. Recently, it has retained a humorous air, especially with their now-defunct "Dear 2-1B" column. The magazine also features advertising for many things, (Star Wars-related and non-Star Wars), and a catalog of Star Wars merchandise. One of the sections is called "Bantha Tracks", which is created entirely by the fans.

Publishers
The magazine is currently edited by Jonathan Wilkins. It has been published by many different companies. But at Star Wars Celebration IV, Star Wars Insider relaunched under the new publisher: Titan Magazines.

Star Wars Insider is not delivered to Germany as this country has its own licensed publication, Star Wars -- Das offizielle Magazin. The same was true of the UK until Titan Magazines took over Star Wars Insider in 2007 and merged it with the UK Star Wars Magazine.

title: Star Wars Insider


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Socialist Alliance (Burkina Faso)

Socialist Alliance (in French: Alliance Socialiste) is a political coalition in Burkina Faso, consisting of the People's Movement for Socialism / Federal Party of Dr. Emile Paré and the Unified Socialist Party of Benoît Lompo. In the presidential election of 13 November 2005, its candidate Pargui Emile Paré won 0.87% of the popular vote.

title: Socialist Alliance (Burkina Faso)


text: User talk:80.178.75.190

title: User talk:80.178.75.190


text:
Talk:Landoverbaptist.org

Merge into Landover Baptist Church. The writing is better there anyway.Harvestdancer 22:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Landoverbaptist.org


text:
User talk:NickHodges

Mr. Hodges- a better place for this is on your user page JJay 22:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Jay -- hey cool. Sorry, I didn't know. I just wanted my own Wikipedia page. Call me vain. :-) NickHodges 15:29, 04 May 2006

Speedy deletion nomination of John Worley (Martial Artist)
A tag has been placed on John Worley (Martial Artist) requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be a blatant copyright infringement. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words.

If the external website belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text — which means allowing other people to modify it — then you must verify that externally by one of the processes explained at Donating copyrighted materials. If you are not the owner of the external website but have permission from that owner, see Requesting copyright permission. You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. ttonyb1 (talk) 01:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

NickHodges (talk) 02:18, 29 June 2009 (UTC) I radically simplified the page, and will find other sources.

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello NickHodges! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 2 of the articles that you created  are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. if you were to bring these articles up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the list:

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Hello NickHodges, this is a message from an automated bot to inform you that the page you created, John Worley (Martial Artist), has been marked for speedy deletion by User:NickHodges. This has been done because the page seems to be about a person, band, club, company, or web content, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is important or significant (see CSD). If you think the tag was placed in error, please add " " to the page text, and edit the to explain why the page should not be deleted. If you have a question about this bot, please ask it at User talk:SDPatrolBot II. If you have a question for the user who tagged the article, see User talk:NickHodges. Thanks, - SDPatrolBot II (talk) on behalf of 12:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Random Smiley Award
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title: User talk:NickHodges


text:
La Push, Washington

La Push is a small unincorporated community situated at the mouth of the Quillayute River in Clallam County, Washington, United States, in the western Olympic Peninsula. La Push is the largest community within the Quileute Indian Reservation, which is home to the federally recognized Quileute tribe. La Push is known for its whale-watching and natural environment. The community has historically been located on the coast; however, sea level rise led the community to begin managed retreat to higher grounds in 2017.

Etymology
The name La Push is from French term, La Bouche, meaning "The Mouth" of the Quillayute River, adapted into Chinook Jargon.

Quileute Tribe history
La Push, 14 miles from Forks, is home to the Quileute Tribe. Tribal members traditionally built cedar canoes for a variety of uses; they ranged in size from two-man to ocean-going freight vessels capable of carrying three tons. The Quileute ranked second only to the Makah as whalers and first among all the tribes as seal hunters. They bred special woolly-haired dogs and spun and wove their hair into prized warm blankets. According to the stories, the Quileutes' only kin, the Chimakum, were separated from them by a great flood that swept them to the Quimper Peninsula on the other side of the North Olympic Peninsula. There they were attacked and destroyed in the 1860s by Chief Seattle and the Suquamish Tribe.

The first treaty with European Americans occurred in 1855, when the Quileutes signed a treaty with representatives of Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens. A treaty a year later would have moved them to a reservation in Taholah, but the Quileute territory was so remote that it was not enforced. In February 1889, an executive order by President Grover Cleveland established a one-mile square reservation at La Push. At the time the town had 252 inhabitants. Later in 1889, arsonists destroyed La Push while villagers were picking hops in Puyallup.

La Push relocation
Work began in 2017 to relocate the village to higher ground. The plan was to reduce damage from tsunamis and flooding that might result from a higher sea level caused by climate change. The plan required modification of the boundaries of the Olympic National Park. The first building that was moved was the elementary school.

Geography
Two beaches are near La Push, Rialto Beach to the north of the river mouth and La Push Beach to the south.

La Push has the westernmost ZIP Code in the contiguous United States, 98350.

Climate
La Push has a very wet oceanic climate. The climate is moderated and strongly influenced by the Pacific Ocean, which renders mild winters for a northerly latitude. Located to the west of the Olympic Mountains, La Push and the surrounding coastline absorb considerable rainfall dropped along the mountain front. The warmest month is August and the coolest month is December.

Culture
La Push is a village of the Quileute Tribe that displays a slower, more relaxed way of life. All of the businesses are owned by the tribe. The Quileute Tribe has revived many of its traditional skills and crafts, which are taught at school along with the unique language. It is an isolate language, unrelated to any root language in the world, and one of only five in the world without nasal sounds.

Festivals and events
The popular Quileute Days take place July 17–19 in La Push. The tribal celebration of cultural heritage and modern lifestyle includes a fireworks display, a traditional salmon bake, dancing and songs, a softball tournament, and other field sports, a slow-pitch tournament, a horseshoe tournament, arts and craft display, and food concessions.

Tourism and recreation
In the 21st century, La Push has oceanfront resorts, a seafood company, fish hatchery, and a revamped marina. Since the early 21st century, the tribe has grown more interested in tourism.

The Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail passes through La Push on the way to its western terminus at Cape Alava.

Education
La Push is the location of the Quileute Tribal School.

title: La Push, Washington


text:
British NVC community MC7

British NVC community MC7 (Stellaria media - Rumex acetosa sea-bird cliff community) is one of the maritime cliff communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system. It is one of two communities associated with sea-bird cliffs.

This community is found in a number of coastal areas. There are no subcommunities.

Community composition
One constant species is found in this community, Common Chickweed (Stellaria media)

No rare species are associated with this community.

Distribution
This community is found in coastal areas on the west coast of Britain from Pembrokeshire northwards, the north and east coasts of Scotland south to the Firth of Forth, and also on offshore islands including St Kilda.

title: British NVC community MC7


text:
Category:British National Vegetation Classification maritime cliff communities

This category groups together articles on the maritime cliff communities of the British National Vegetation Classification system.

c


text:
Uintah Railway

The Uintah Railway was a small narrow gauge railroad company in Utah and Colorado in the United States. It was constructed to carry Gilsonite which provided most of its operating revenues; but it operated as a common carrier from 1904 to 1939, also carrying passengers, mail, express, and other cargoes including sheep and wool. When a public library was built in Dragon in 1910, the Uintah Railway agreed to deliver library books free of charge to and from any borrower along its route. Many area ranchers and miners took advantage of the opportunity.

Background
The Uintah Basin includes seams of asphaltum remaining where petroleum from the Green River Formation oil shales seeped into fissures in the overlying sandstone where smaller hydrocarbon molecules were slowly evaporated or digested by aerobic microbes. The remaining large-molecular-weight hydrocarbons formed a lustrous black solid at ambient temperatures, resembling anthracite coal with a brownish dust. Following ignition, the heat generated by combustion causes the burning asphaltum to melt and flow. European Americans began mining this asphaltum in the 1860s, but attempts to burn it in conventional coal stoves were unsuccessful. The asphaltum was named Gilsonite after Samuel Henry Gilson began using the material in 1886 as a varnish and as electrical insulation. Gilson built a manufacturing plant in Salt Lake City, and began mining operations in 1888. The plant was purchased by a group of Missouri businessmen who formed the Gilsonite Asphaltum Company. For more than a decade, Gilsonite was hauled from the mines in horse-drawn wagons to be loaded aboard railway cars at Price, Utah. The wagons took ten or eleven days to make a round trip and the hauling costs encouraged construction of a railroad.

History
The railway company was founded in 1903 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Gilson Asphaltum Company. Construction began at a connection with the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad at what became known as Mack, Colorado. Twenty-eight miles of track was laid following West Salt Wash Creek upstream to the company town of Atchee, Colorado, named after a chief of the Ute people. Atchee served as a division point with maintenance shops for railway equipment. From Atchee, six miles of 7.5 percent grade were required to climb the Book Cliffs to Baxter Pass at an elevation of 8437 ft. From the summit of Baxter Pass, there were seven miles of 5 percent downhill grade to Wendella, Colorado, followed by twelve miles of 3 percent or shallower grades down Evacuation Creek to the Black Dragon Mine just west of the Utah border. The Black Dragon Vein of Gilsonite was exposed across the ground surface for a distance of 4 mile, and averaged 6 ft wide for half of that distance. Trains began hauling Gilsonite from the Black Dragon Mine in October, 1904. Shay locomotives pulled freight trains over Baxter Pass between the Dragon Mine and Atchee, and 2-8-0 engines pulled the freight trains between Atchee and Mack.

Ten miles of track were laid in 1911 on a one percent grade down Evacuation Creek from Dragon, Utah, to the Rainbow Mine near Watson, Utah. A new 2-8-2 locomotive was built to pull freight trains between Watson and Wendella. The new locomotive was more efficient than Shay locomotives on that section of track, but it could not negotiate the steep grades and sharp curves over Baxter Pass between Wendella and Atchee. The railroad had operated passenger trains since 1905 consisting of a 0-6-2 tank locomotive pulling a single combine car between Mack and Dragon or Watson. This passenger train service was discontinued in 1921.

For much of the 1920s the Uintah was headed by Lucian Sprague, a railroad executive who later became well known for orchestrating the dramatic turnaround of the bankrupt Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway. In 1926 the railroad purchased an articulated locomotive, #50, which was specifically designed to handle the extreme curvature and steep grades of Baxter Pass. The idea was that this new locomotive would do away with the need to change engines at Atchee and Wendella. The single articulated locomotive could move as many cars as two Shay locomotives from Rainbow to Atchee and made the trip in half the time. After some initial modifications, this engine proved to be such a success that in 1928 the railroad purchased a sister locomotive, #51. These were the only narrow gauge simple articulated locomotives sold for use in the United States.

Through a bureaucratic loophole, the USPS charged in-state rates for shipping between the basin and Salt Lake City, assuming a straight line distance, despite them using the Uintah Railway, and having to route the mail to Colorado first and then back into Utah. This meant it was significantly cheaper to ship by mail than pay the railroad directly. A number of businesses soon discovered this loophole, and when the builders of a bank in the town of Vernal learned this, they shipped 30 tons of bricks, one at a time, by mail. This nearly bankrupted the Utah division of the postal service, forcing them adjust the shipping zone boundaries to match the geographical isolation of the Uinta Basin from the rest of Utah.

The railroad lasted until 1939 when trucks took over hauling the Gilsonite. At that time, the rails were pulled up and the towns abandoned. Most of the railway's locomotives were scrapped immediately; the two famous articulateds were sold to the Sumpter Valley Railway in Oregon and later went to Guatemala, where they were dismantled. Today all that remains of the Uintah are the cellar pits of some of the buildings, the shell of the machine shop in Atchee, a few pieces of rolling stock and part of the company hotel in Mack.

Route

 * Milepost 0 - Mack, Colorado (D&RGW interchange with water tank and turning wye)
 * Milepost 4.2 - Clarkton (11 car spur)
 * Milepost 11.5 - Sprague (12 car siding)
 * Milepost 20.1 - Carbonera (company coal mine)
 * Milepost 28.3 - Atchee, Colorado (coal shed, water tank, company shops and turning wye)
 * Milepost 30.1 - Moro Castle (66° horseshoe curve)
 * Milepost 32.2 - Shale (horseshoe curve, water tank and 5 car spur)
 * Milepost 34.2 - Baxter Pass summit (turning wye and 17 car siding)
 * Milepost 36.1 - Deer Run (6 car spur & coal shed)
 * Milepost 37.4 - Columbine (horseshoe curve with balloon return loop and water tank)
 * Milepost 39.0 - Hairpin curve
 * Milepost 39.4 - Muleshoe curve
 * Milepost 39.9 - McAndrews (9 car siding and dam creating Lake McAndrews for Wendella water tank)
 * Milepost 40.9 - Wendella (water tank and turning wye)
 * Milepost 42.1 - Sewall (15 car spur)
 * Milepost 46.6 - East Vac (9 car spur)
 * Milepost 48.0 - Urado (2 car spur)
 * Milepost 50.8 - Colorado/Utah state line
 * Milepost 53.3 - Dragon, Utah (Gilsonite mine with coal shed, water tank and turning wye)
 * Milepost 54.6 - Country Boy (7 car spur)
 * Milepost 55.7 - Rector (7 car spur)
 * Milepost 58.6 - Ute (6 car spur)
 * Milepost 62.1 - Rainbow Junction (Gilsonite mine)
 * Milepost 62.8 - Watson (water tank and turning wye)

title: Uintah Railway