Jerome Junction

Jerome Junction was the starting point for the narrow gauge United Verde and Pacific. It was at this location that the narrow gauge line met up with the standard gauge Santa Fe, Prescott and Pacific. The two lines shared a common depot here and trans-loading facilities to interchange freight. The UV&P also had a shop and engine servicing facilities located here at the west end of the line.


The UV&P had a large oil storage tank that was used in later years to fuel the locomotives. In the beginning, the steam power was all fueled by coal. To facilitate delivery of the fuel oil, an oil receiving pit was utilized. This photo is the stone lined pit as seen today. The pit extends all the way down to the wood fence posts at the far end of the shot. A pump house was located near where the pickup truck is parked. This view is looking south and a large oil storage tank would have been about 300' to the east. The circular outline of the tank is still visible on the modern aerial photos.

Nothing much remains of the shared depot at Jerome Junction. This shot is the approximate location of the structure with a very slight trace of the outline although it is hard to see in the photo.



North of the depot was a dual gauge scale to verify the weight of goods being transloaded. The scale pit is easy to find today with nice concrete walls. You can even make out the supports for the dual gauge rail supports on the north end of the pit. North of this pit was a platform for transloading of box and flat cars. The location may have been in the darker spot on the left side of the shot.

To the east of the scale pit was a shop building. It may have been on the other side of the fence in this shot.



Coke were also transloaded at this site to fuel the smelter at Jerome. To ease the transfer, a ramp and trestle was built so that standard gauge cars could dump the coke. This shot shows the earthen ramp that the standard gauge cars would have been run up onto the trestle.



This shot is at the northern end of the yard with the ramp at the left. The ground is covered with black material here from the ore bins that received the coke. Narrow gauge tracks were located on both sides of the ore bins with the left track extending all the way to the south end of the yard. The right track was a spur that came off of the left track somewhere near the photographer's location. Note the more recent cattle chute beyond the ramp. In earlier days a cattle chute was situated further south between the NG and SG.

This final shot is an attempt to photograph the site of the engine house. This land is fenced off unlike the yard area which is accessible via the Peavine Trail (former Santa Fe grade). The yard is separated from the engine house and wye by the road that heads towards Jerome on top of the UV&P grade for most of the journey. The engine house would have been at the raised area in the center of the shot below the fence. This shot was taken from the Peavine Trail. The engine house lead was the tail of the wye and appears to have been three stalls. It is labeled as a roundhouse but looks to have been fed by switches rather than a turntable.