He didn't exactly lie down on the tracks, but Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson stressed Saturday he'd stop at nothing to stop trains from rolling through a west Salt Lake neighborhood.
"We will not stand for this to happen in our community," Anderson told a crowd of rallying neighbors. "Union Pacific's pursuit of its narrow economic interests at the expense of this neighborhood should not and will not be tolerated."
Sporting signs denigrating railroads and roaring with applause, residents of Glendale and Poplar Grove communities gathered Saturday at 900 South and Navajo Street (1350 West) to protest the looming return of trains to their neighborhood.
Union Pacific plans to reopen its 900 South line as early as November, saying it will run 10 freight trains a day down the tracks.
Although the city wants the railroad out, U.P. officials say they have no intention of abandoning the tracks because they play a vital role in alleviating congestion along other tracks that are near capacity.
"The city does not have the right to tell us to get off of 900 South," spokesman Mike Furtney has said.
On Friday, however, the city filed a federal lawsuit to force Union Pacific to abandon the tracks.
Deputy City Attorney Steven Allred said the city will seek a restraining order against the railroad to prevent it from doing any work on the tracks in preparation for the trains.
"The goal is to try to keep them from opening the lines and ultimately force them to remove the lines," Allred said.
Those lines cut through a neighborhood where Marjorie Bent has lived for 48 years.
"If those trains come through here it will completely box us in," she said.
Sheila Carton, struggling to speak because of laryngitis, had her young handicapped daughter perched on her hip and two other children at her side.
"I don't think they have the right to gamble with our kids' lives for the sake of profit," Carton said. "I have five children, three have asthma and one is handicapped. How are we going to get emergency services in here? There are a lot of elderly people in this neighborhood. We have emergency medical services in and out of here about four or five times a week."
Neighbors and city officials contend the rumbling trains with as many as 100 box cars will choke the area off from every major west-side intersection, compromising the ability of residents to receive vital services in a timely manner.
"I grew up in this area and would not like to see them come back again," Salt Lake City Councilman Van Blair Turner said. "I have yet to run into anyone who thinks this is a good idea."
Anderson implored the crowd to start exercising their political muscle to stop the trains by hounding state legislators, Utah Department of Transportation officials, Gov. Mike Leavitt and congressional leaders.
"We need to come together in the most vigorous and vocal way and make this a true community effort," he said.
Anderson and neighborhood residents are pinning their hopes on a 1989 franchise agreement Salt Lake City has with Union Pacific, specifically one provision the mayor says gives the city eviction rights.
The agreement, Anderson contends, is void if the railroad hasn't used the tracks for nine months or longer. Because those tracks have sat idle for years, Anderson said Union Pacific has to relinquish the property and yank out the line.
Union Pacific says that provision is non-binding. Earlier this week, the railroad filed a claim with the federal Surface Transportation Board contesting the city's arguments and restating its intention to run trains along 900 South.
Anderson said the railroad has the option of using the tracks on 1800 South that run through an industrial area, but that option has been rejected because of cost.
"Union Pacific refused to consider this less intrusive option," he said.
The railroad has said it needs to open the 900 South line because congestion in the Gateway district has its tracks at near capacity.
Residents aren't sympathetic.
Glendale Community Council vice chairman Jay Ingleby said 831 names had been collected for a petition aimed at stopping the trains.
E-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com