POTD - Grande Colors In Strange Places

Just south of where I-70 and I-270 meet, there's a place unknown to most Denver railfans. It's even--probably--unknown to most Denver Railroaders. If you would think this is Commerce City, you would be wrong. First, very few areas in Commerce City are capable of sustaining green plant life. Second, the junction of I-70 and I-270 is roughly 1,400 miles to the east of Commerce City in Frederick, Maryland. Why then is this the Photo of the Day on CR?

When you look closely, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway has no connection to Colorado with the exception that many of the upper management of W&LE used to call Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad home until they followed head executive Larry Parsons to the smallish short line in Ohio. Their love of their old railroad comes through in big and small ways. Recently, the railroad's ample power pool and tenacity in business led to their units showing up in other locations, including CSX trackage in Point Of Rocks, Maryland, many miles east of Rio Grande's old headquarters in Denver.

Wheeling & Lake Erie shows her Rio Grande colors in the muggy heat near
Point of Rocks, Maryland last week on July 30, 2011 waiting for a green light.
Photo: George W. Hamlin

PS: Interested in the Grande scheme of things in Ohio? Check out this fan page detailing the Wheeling & Lake Erie's motive power. It's a big page!

POTD - D&RGW 315 Crossing the Animas River

John West is an accomplished photographer with many years of experience and hundreds of publishable and historic photographs under his belt, 13 of which are available for purchase. His pictures bring narrow gauge enthusiasts immeasurable joy and pleasure.

Originally Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad engine 3, the Denver & Rio Grande numbered it 424 before the Denver & Rio Grande Western numbered it 315.  Durango Railroad Historical Society restored the engine from March 2001 until she moved under her own steam in August 2007.

On August 23, 2010, during last year's Railfest, Mr. West captured #315, a former Denver & Rio Grande Western 2-8-0 steam locomotive as it crossed the Animas River near Tacoma, Colorado, on former Denver & Rio Grande Western rails, now operated by Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, which will host its 13th annual Railfest later this month.

D&RGW Consolidation 2-8-0 #315 leads a photo freight over the Animas near
Tacoma on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad August 23, 2010
Photo: John West

 

POTD - 135 Years of Statehood, Rail Tourism

Today's POTD honors Colorado and her 135 years of statehood. Prior to August 1, 1876, Colorado was a territory carved out of portions of Kansas Territory and Utah Territory with smaller parts of the Nebraska and New Mexico Territories. Since it was the only state admitted to the union that year, the centennial of the United States, Colorado became known as the Centennial state.

Property speculators and railroads were anxious to entice settlers and pioneering families to come west and generate revenue by living and working out there. While trappers and later miners were eager to make a fortune off the land, farmers, tradesmen and other people that make lasting communities weren't typically as anxious to risk all in a move out west. Unscrupulous promoters wrote fifictitious accounts, one even going so far as to claim that steam boats were departing daily at Denver on the South Platte River. As you can see from this photo, even with modern-day dams keeping the South Platte flowing year round, the river--if you can call it that--would not be navigable by such craft. Such fiction was unfortunately common and many would-be settlers would not trust written accounts. Therefore, it was all the more important that photographs were taken and reproduced as much as possible showing Colorado to be a land open to new settlers and the skills they had or were willing to learn. Photos that depicted the scenic wonders of the west were just as helpful in promoting the nascent tourism industry.

Railroad travel and tourism in Colorado got a healthy boost from the work of William Henry Jackson, whose photographs brought on a continuous flow of curious and moderately wealthy tourists who had never seen such drama and beauty. One such photograph is of Toltec Gorge along the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Jackson made trips up and down the line in a photographer's special train that usually included a mobile dark room for his plate glass negatives. His train is just barely visible (top right) from this point in the canyon, nearly 800 feet below the tracks.

A D&RG train steams above the floor of Toltec Gorge on the San Juan
Extension. The undated photograph is between 1878 and 1898 (maybe 1880?)
Photo: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Such a view (from the top, anyway) is still available today on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, which took the Rio Grande's property and turned it into a thriving heritage railroad.

If you are interested in the history, the Colorado Railroad Museum has a new exhibit, Trains and Tourism in Colorado. It opened this summer and has a great deal of historic artifacts. Imagine columbines, Colorado's state flower, being gathered by the armful on "Wildflower Excursions" over a century ago, where the ticket was $1.50, which would be about $34.92 today.¹

¹ - Converted per scale at MyKindred.com

Steam-to-steam Transfers On Wednesdays Until August 17th

Here's a video from 2008 when the steam-to-steam transfer at Antonito was quietly tried out using a caboose to take riders into Alamosa.

Hear That Whistle Blow

One of the more interesting groups of railfans are the ones that are into locomotive whistles and horns, the signaling devices used by engineers to communicate and warn the world outside his cab of what he's doing. An entire industry has grown around a collection of railfans who collect and, at times, sound off their affection for trains.

New Railroad Construction In Denver

It's always a good sign when your friendly neighborhood railroad, usually BNSF or Union Pacific west of Chicago, starts adding capacity in your region. It could be a second main line between two points only a few miles apart, or it could be a third or (wow!) fourth main for 20 miles or more. After a century of contraction and abandoned routes, railroads are cautiously upgrading and adding rail routes.

Rio Grande's Last Decades Still Survive On the Web

A lot of us, some of us still in our thirties, still remember the latter days of the Rio Grande with fondness. In the era of SD-70ACe's and smarter FREDs, it's possible to recall the days of GP-30s and cabooses (cabeese?). These days, however, it helps to have something to refresh our own memories.

Video of Steve Lee's Presentation In Hugo

Have you ever wondered what it takes to field a modern day, main line steam program? Steve Lee, recently retired, is the most experienced at the complexities of Union Pacific's Steam Program. His commentary and photos from his 22 years as head of the program were given as part of the meeting Sunday for the Hugo Roundhouse preservation group.

Steve Lee, Jim Burrill Presentation On UP Steam On Sunday In Hugo

Recently retired UP Steam program head, Steve Lee and Jim Burrill, self-admitted Steam Geek for Union Pacific, plan to give a presentation on the Union Pacific this Sunday in Hugo, Colorado. It is part of an annual meeting of the Roundhouse Preservation group, but the meeting is open to the public and "any interested person is welcome."

Worth noting, the roundhouse in Hugo is one of four remaining roundhouses in Colorado, and the only brick constructed roundhouse in the state. The preservation group began work in 2003 and appear to have made steady progress.

Skitching In Silverton

So, it's the day after Christmas. The presents are all open and you're getting through the annual post-Christmas hangover. Depending on your weather, it could be 70 degrees and gorgeous or 20 below, gray and ugly! If that's your lot this Sunday, what to do? If you've got a model layout to work on and materials to use, you're all set. If modeling's not your thing, there's always DVDs and YouTube.

Rio Grande Reading For A Sunday Afternoon

For the folks that aren't able to make it to the train show this weekend, or who, like me, went but can't get enough of trains and railroads, I've found a couple of articles for interesting reading. Mark Oehlert is a painter, writer, and artist whose interest in the Rocky Mountains is more than a passing thing. He's put two articles up on Suite101.com that, if a bit romantic, still paint a good picture of the Rio Grande. His Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad History and Origin and Demise of a Railroad Legend: The California Zephyr might be enough to sate you, or they may just whet your appetite for more! Good Sunday afternoon reading, regardless!

Lobato Trestle Op-Ed in ABQ Journal

Bill Hume, board member of the C&TS Railroad Management Company wrote an Op-Ed piece for the Albuquerque Journal regarding the Lobato Trestle rebuild project. In it, he covers the history of the actions taken since the fire in June.  Of note:

Firemen School on the C&TS

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad continues their school for different roles on steam operated freight trains. This week, they've got 6 firemen students training. The video is from Monday where they spent half the day in the classroom and half the day making up the train they planned to use on Tuesday.

Featured Photographer - Gary Morris

Aside from the photo aggregate sites like  railpictures.net and rrpicturearchives.net, it's hard to find photographers with high-quality railroad photographs of the 60s, 70s and 80s in Colorado. That's why I got a bit excited when I found Gary Morris' site and his section on the Rio Grande Railroad earlier this summer. He's got his collection organized in HTML by railroad, but you can still find a few BN and UP shots in Denver if you dig for them.

Tiny Town Railroad Derailment

Seldom does a tourist railroad lead the nightly newscast for something other than a major disaster, a miniature railroad doubly so. Wednesday, August 11th, a morning train making it's trip around the 15-inch gauge Tiny Town railroad was northbound along the roadway through South Turkey Creek Canyon toward the northern end of the park with 30 passengers aboard. Heading into a curve, the train derailed, spilling the 2-6-0 live steam engine #10 and ending with five of the six cars on the ground. The last car was a caboose loaded with children.

Photos of UP 844 In Milliken

Kimm Wierema, who lives with a family of railfans, managed to capture some really nice photos of UP 844 on its visit to Milliken, Colorado. The last-purchased, never-retired steam locomotive of the Union Pacific was on hand on June 26th to help the City of Milliken celebrate its centennial this year.

Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society Convention

There are a few more train shows still coming this year. Most of the shows will be in Denver, except where noted. I will be breaking them up into individual posts so that any comments will be specific for the event.

Here we go for the second half of the year:

July 21-25, 2010, Denver 

The Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society will be hosting it's international convention next week Wednesday  through Sunday at the Doubletree Hotel, Denver near the old Stapleton airport at 32nd Ave (MLK) and Quebec. This mulit-day conference is aimed at the serious Santa Fe fan. It will be themed around the Colorado Flyer, a premier passenger train between Chicago and Denver in the 1930’s.  The group will also be featuring the Royal Gorge war, a bloodless war in the 1880s between the Santa Fe and Denver and Rio Grande.  

As it says on their site, you don't have to be a member to attend. The cost of the convention this year will be $130.00. This includes clinics, contests, displays, banquet and Sunday breakfast, a pin, and a patch. Extra banquet tickets are $45.00, extra breakfast tickets are $25.00. For reservations and further information, visit their site. 

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Cumbres & Toltec Buses Passengers Between Chama & Cumbres

At last, there is good news from Chama! Because of the fire at the Lobato Trestle, the 40th anniversary season of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad was under a significant cloud of doubt. Now, the operational shuffle by the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad appears to be over for the time being. 

Flag Day - Colorado's Star

This isn't directly related to railroads, but with today being Flag Day, I thought it would be appropriate and a little interesting to look at the flag when Colorado's star was added . It was first used on July 4, 1877, the first Independence Day after Colorado's admission into the Union.

Video: D&SNG Between the Rails At Hermosa

The D&SNG is the only narrow gauge railroad that, like the UP 844, has never ceased operations. It's squat, black engines and strings of Grande Gold coaches have been delighting railfans for more than half a century.

The video below, set from a unique angle, is from Hermosa, Colorado. No analog quality here! A train running over you (or your camera) at a good 25 or 30 miles an hour is impressive, and with digital quality and a widescreen format, it's quite an amazing vantage point between the rails!