"Ladies and gentlemen, for your information we're currently running at 79 mph," the conductor said over the loudspeaker on the first northbound passenger run of a FrontRunner commuter train from Salt Lake City to Ogden.
The thing is, this grand opening happened on a Saturday, absent workday traffic, and the automobiles just outside the window on Interstate-15 also were running around 80 mph, so it didn't seem so fast. The true measure of the train's soothing capabilities will come Monday when it whisks past those cars during rush hour.
Kane Loader had a sneak peek on a test ride last fall and remembers a test run a few months ago when the FrontRunner blew past traffic stopped for construction.
"That's the best advertising FrontRunner could have," he said from the train on Saturday.
But it's not so much the speed of this ride that many say will bring them back after the fanfare of free rides ends on Wednesday. It's the option to avoid traffic, high gasoline prices and stress.
Loader lives in Riverton and works for the city of Midvale, so riding FrontRunner isn't really a commuter option for him. But his son lives in Roy, and they've worked out the logistics of picking each other up at the Roy and Salt Lake stations. Once the Utah Transit Authority finishes FrontRunner's southern leg 50 miles to Provo in a few years, he looks forward to riding it to Brigham Young University football games.
"I hate having to commute to the game every Saturday and having to leave three hours early," he said.
A string of public officials gathered at Salt Lake City's transit hub before the ride to christen and celebrate the train that Wasatch Front voters set in motion when they approved a quarter-cent sales tax in 2000. The Ogden-Salt Lake project cost $611 million, and the federal government paid 80 percent of it.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, told a crowd of hundreds that in a state that has grown by 900,000 people since he took office, new transportation options are critical for preserving quality of life. It never seemed plausible when Utah was spread out and car-dependent, but now that the Wasatch Front is getting denser, it adds up, he said.
"In order for [mass transit] to work, you have to have the mass that needs to be transited," he said.
"If we do not solve our transportation problems, we will strangle our growth," he said.
Inside one of the double-decker cars as the train got going, 19-year-old Anna Lantis of Taylorsville dealt a hand of the card game "Speed" to her friends, taking advantage of one of the tables that are scattered among the padded seats that face each other two-by-two.
"I really like the ride," she said. "It's very fast." But she didn't expect to have reason to ride again - until a friend told her she can ride it to Farmington's Lagoon amusement park this summer. UTA will operate free shuttles from the train to the park.
"Oh, sweet!" she said. "Yeah, I'll be back."
Riding the train past a crowded freeway corridor offers leisurely viewing opportunities, in addition to the chance for a card game or a safe phone conversation. There are a good many horses and even bison sprinkled between the beige stucco subdivisions of Farmington. Did you know you can see the Great Salt Lake's water from east of Roy if your eyes aren't glued to the road? You can also type up a complete news story between Farmington and Ogden, if you're so inclined.
A ride on FrontRunner will cost $2.50 to start, plus 50 cents for each additional station, or a maximum charge of $5 from Ogden to Salt Lake City. A monthly pass costs $145. The train operates six days a week till midnight, and tickets are good for a transfer to TRAX light rail or UTA buses.
UTA also opened its TRAX extension from downtown Salt Lake to the FrontRunner station on 600 West on Saturday.
People who started early enough to get on the first afternoon trains waited an hour and a half in line. When UTA attendants advised them that it could take them four hours to get back on if they disembarked in Ogden, most stayed on for the return trip and the train soon became standing-room-only.
Dena Richardson of Taylorsville made her first-ever train ride, and said it surprised her. "It's pretty smooth," she said.
"You see all these shows with subways and people [swaying]," said her husband, Dave. "This is nice."
Like many aboard Saturday's free ride, they anticipated using the train to visit family members in the future.
For one Utahn, Saturday's ride was a tearful return to a happy past. Gordon Cardall of Highland started working on the old Bamberger Railroad in 1943, when he was 15. Eleven years later he engineered that line's final southbound ride. The railroad fell victim to cheap diesel for buses and to government policies that subsidized mass highway construction, he said.
Ever since, he has vacationed in places where he can ride trains and reminisce, whether on the cable cars in San Francisco or the narrow-gauge line in Durango, Colo. Now 80, he never thought he would see this day in Utah.
"I'm amazed," Cardall said when he saw the crowd. "I'd have never dreamed of the turnout." But he's convinced that the train's era has come back around to stay and FrontRunner will compete for thousands of commuters.
"It's expensive, but so is gas," he said.
