POTD - Is it real, or is it a painting?

Kevin Madore of Massachusetts caught the Eureka & Palisade engine #4, the Eureka, on the bridge leaving Silverton one bright August afternoon during the D&S railfest last year. The photo is so ideal, it could pass for an oil-on-canvas original. It doesn't get much better!

Extra No 4 crosses the Rio de las Animas on its way out of Silverton for the return trip
to Durango with her diminutive train and a beautiful white crown of steam on August 20, 2011
Photo: Kevin Madore 

Knott's Celebrates 60 Years

Photo by Mark Rightmire,
The Orange County Register

Over 60 years ago, Walter Knott, an enterprising man with many years' experience in the growing tourism industry in California, had a vision. Built to give guests waiting to eat the famous chicken dinners made by his wife, his growing Ghost Town was attracting many visitors in its own right. Yet the Ghost Town didn't feel complete to Knott without a live steam locomotive.

POTD - Looking Down The Line Toward Christmas

The Polar Express is making runs three times an evening all this week from Durango to "the North Pole." It's approach toward the platform at the Durango station mirrors the approach of Christmas, now just a few days off. Rather than get caught up in the business and hassle of the season, it's my hope that you take a moment to step out on the platform with a cup of coffee (or hot chocolate) and gaze off down the track at the coming beauty and wonder of Christmas. It may not be convenient, or even on your schedule. Nevertheless, it may be necessary.

The Polar Express makes it's way past the back of the roundhouse on its way to
pick up scores of children and their parents in Durango on a frosty evening
Photo: DHLake

POTD - 50 Years Ago, Waiting In A Winter Wonderland

Well, it's been a while since I've posted any Photos of the Day, hasn't it? Too long, I know. Let's get back into it, shall we?


John West is a favorite photographer of mine, and it's not just because he had the good sense to be in Colorado photographing Rio Grande narrow gauge in the 1960s. It's because he didn't have any common sense standing out there in the cold snow waiting for two Rio Grande locomotives to chatter past with a load of Gramps Oil cars headed for Cumbres Pass and the oil fields beyond. Remember, pain is temporary, but film is forever. Thanks, Mr. West!

A double-headed narrow gauge freight headed by K-36 No. 480 puts on a wintry show
as it charges across the San Luis Valley tangent track 50 years ago this month
Photo: John West

UP 844 Goodwill Tour Videos Show A Classy Main Line Steam Engine, Crew

Rail photographers Skip Weythman and Dan Barker work as a two-man video team that does a very good job capturing the beauty of locomotives as their trains travel the broad expanses of western railroads, especially in Colorado. Their pacing shots of Union Pacific Steam are exceptional, considering the difficulty of steadying the shot, keeping an even rate of speed, and the physically demanding nature of the work. Their work stayed true to form despite the cold weather during Union Pacific's goodwill Centennial tour of the southwest states, which is winding down in Ogden, Utah, at the time of writing. Their work shows in the first four videos in the playlist below.

POTD - Snow and Steam

Chris May, known popularly as GhoSStrider, is no stranger to POTD, but the last time he was featured he was chasing the Cheyenne Frontier Days special and his feature ran in early August! Quite the change here as he catches a volunteer dismount Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad engine 346 one cold December morning.

Photo: GhoSStrider

UP 844 Tours Colorado, Fuels Positive Perceptions

As I write this, Union Pacific 844, the FEF-3 that never retired, sits at the top of the world ...well, the top of the Palmer Divide, anyway. It is as high in elevation that it will get along the entire goodwill tour, edging out Altamont, Wyoming by only 7 feet in elevation, according to UP elevation measurements.

Rio Grande 463 Scheduled to Return In 2012

The Monte Vista Journal did an article that serves as an update on Mudhen 463, under restoration in the San Luis Valley. The Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic have set March 31, 2012 as the completion date, despite the restoration requiring more work than anticipated, resulting in a $240,000 shortfall. Hopefully, next season sees the smallest and oldest of the surviving 2-8-2 Mikados back on the rails!

UP Goodwill Steam Tour Has Several Colorado Stops

Update: 
10/21/2011 2:55 PM - As promised, I have a full map of the stops in Colorado with arrival and departure times.

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Union Pacific has announced an extensive tour of the southwest US to participate in state-wide centennial celebrations for New Mexico and Arizona. Since Colorado is currently located between those two locations and Cheyenne, perpetual home of UP Steam, several stops have been scheduled in Colorado to give folks a chance to come out and see Union Pacific 844.

POTD - Steaming On Toward Colder Days

A sudden dip in the temperature this weekend reminded me that winter is only a little over 3 months away. Former D&RGW class K-28 engine 473 makes her way northward past the tank at Hermosa,Colorado toward the wye at Cascade on a cold, clear Saturday morning in December 2003.

Photo: Kevin Wood

Mudhen 463 Frame Mated To Boiler In Mammoth Crane Event

Some great news has come out of Monte Vista this month! Denver & Rio Grande Western steam engine 463 has taken a major step in her return to steam. The frame and boiler were finally mated back together at last. Everything appears to be on schedule for the K-27 class Mudhen to return to steam at the beginning of the 2012 Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad summer season.

POTD - Isolated in Leadville

The last remnant of the Denver, South Park and Pacific being operated today is the Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad. From 1899, it was part of the C&S consolidation of narrow gauge lines--the ones not associated with Rio Grande. In the 40s, the line was standard gauged, operating for a short time with 4 rails to prevent any service disruption. From the 40s to the 60s, C&S #641 moved cars from the Climax mine at the top of Fremont Pass down to the connection with Rio Grande outside Leadville. After 641 retired, she was put on display in Leadville while a Burlington Northern road switcher took over her duties.

Colorado & Southern standard gauge steamer rests outside the Leadville,
Colorado & Southern depot in Leadville, Colorado one hot day in August 1999
Photo: Jeff Jordan

POTD - D&RGW 315 Leads the Parade of Trains

Denver & Rio Grande Western Consolidation 2-8-0 pulls the first of several
trains into the depot at Durango during Railfest on August 21, 2010
Photo: Kevin Madore

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 - Maintenence

I said on Wednesday that it was a two-parter and this being Friday, I'm sure you're expecting something different. It is something different ...sort of. Actually, it's the same photographer, and the same subject, a steam engine, is involved, but that's where the similarities end.

Christopher May got my attention with this black-and-white image of two volunteers at the Colorado Railroad Museum during Shay Days. It is titled very simply, Maintenance, and it highlights a fundamental truth that it is not just a steam engine that works to keep the steel wheels in motion over steel rails. Each iron beast, steam or diesel, standard gauge or narrow, represents many, many man-hours of hard work, heat, pressure, oil and tools exhausted in keeping the rails plied with people, consumables and goods. Sometimes it's a gantry crane lifting a multi-ton assembly for a 2-dollar part replacement that gets focused attention. Today, it was near a cylinder on the geared drivetrain of a Shay locomotive at a narrow-gauge haven in Golden.

Incidentally, there are times when a photograph invites a black-and-white shot treatment, but this one fairly stands up and demands it. Great work, Chris!

West Side Lumber Shay engine #12 gets a hand or two during some Maintenance at
Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO on May 14, 2011 during "Shay Days."
Photo: Christopher May/GhoSStrider

POTD - An Hour Or Two Earlier Makes the Difference

Today's Photo of the Day is the second by GhoSStrider, as Christopher May is known on flickr. This was apparently on the same trip, taken earlier in the day as the sun was still in its sunrise mode. As you can see in comparison with yesterday's POTD, which was taken later, the passage of a "couple hours" can change everything. Change the light in color, angle or both, you change the photograph. The rich color really comes through, even with the grass and the grain elevator.

Northern Colorado, which varies in area with whom you ask, is part of the Colorado Front Range Urban Corridor. Despite this "urban" definition, the people and landscape of this strip between Cheyenne and Denver is a mix of semi-industrial, suburban, and commercial islands strung like pearls along the I-25, US 85, and US 287 lifelines linking the two cities, surrounded by vast agricultural ventures that epitomize rural, non-urban life. Any journey out east will tell you that urban isn't what they should call the Front Range piedmont. Coming out of Brighton as the 844 works its way north, the landscape shifts agrarian for the first but not the last time.

The best part--from a railfan's point of view--about the old Denver Pacific line is that, despite its history, it's not all that old. UP maintenance crews have kept this line in good shape, and the relatively level grade lets 844 pick up some speed on its way.

Union Pacific 4-8-4 #844 paces down the rails through Brighton on a beautiful
Saturday morning July 23, 2011 on her way to Cheyenne's Frontier Days in WY
Photo: GhoSStrider

POTD - Terry Ranch Road

Today's picture of the day comes from last Saturday's Cheyenne Frontier Days special chartered by the Denver Post. Chris (GhoSStrider on flickr) has been building himself up as another of Colorado's young and talented railroad photographers for several years now. He deserves a two-parter, the second you will see tomorrow.

Denver Post's Cheyenne Frontier Days Special approaches Terry Ranch Road, just
north of the Colorado border on its final miles to Cheyenne Frontier Days 7/23/11
Photo: GhoSStrider

Cheyenne Frontier Days Winds Down

UP 4-8-4 #844 and Centennial DD40X
#6936 in Cheyenne, photo: UP

The Cheyenne Frontier Days Special has just about wrapped up its runs for 2011. They are heading south on their final run of the final day as I write. The last run is scheduled to leave Denver tomorrow at 1 p.m. for an arrival at UP Steam's headquarters in Cheyenne at 6:00 p.m. It is the first Cheyenne Frontier Days train since the tradition restarted in 1992 to run without the oversight and steady hand of Steve Lee, recently retired.

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.

Cumbres & Toltec Serving Up A Hot Fourth of July

If you have not made any solid plans for next weekend's Fourth of July festivities, consider heading down to the Cumbres & Toltec for a weekend that promises to be unforgettable. They have a full plate of Independence Day activities. A photo from last year's celebration found itself on the back inside cover of Trains Magazine. If you need any more encouragement to go, read on!