This project, which was completed in 1934, finally gave Denver its direct rail line to Salt Lake City. In 1947, the D&SL was completely absorbed into the D&RG, which in turn was taken over by the Southern Pacific in 1988 and finally the Union Pacific RR in 1996. Other than the Rollins Pass section, all of the original DS&L railroad route is still in use today. In Utah, the unfinished portion of the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad would have passed through the Uinta Basin in route to Salt Lake. The Uinta basin has extensive oil shale resources. To take better advantage of this oil shale, multiple proposals to build a Uinta Basin Rail line connecting the basin to the national rail network have been made by both public and private interests, including multiple proposals made from 1915-1920. Some of these proposals involve the constructing more of the proposed route of the former D&SL into Utah. In 1984, the Deseret Power Railroad was built to connect a coal mine in Colorado with a power plant in Utah. The line follows a small portion of the proposed D&SL route, however it is completely isolated from the national rail network. In 2015, the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) completed a study on the state of Utah's rail infrastructure that identified the Uinta Basin line as a top priority for a freight rail corridor. The study noted the strain the lack of rail access is placing on highways that serve the basin, and the price disadvantage caused by lack of rail access compared to other oil producing regions with rail. The study identified multiple possible rail corridors, including some similar to the originally proposed D&SL route, but stated their preference as a route via Indian Canyon (which currently provides the route of U.S. Route 191 into the basin). This route would connect to the Central Corridor near Soldier Summit.