Commuter Rail Officially Operational In Denver

All photos: RTD

It's opening weekend for RTD's first-ever commuter rail line. Like the first light rail line, it's a milestone for the state's largest metropolitan transportation agencies (and by far the richest). The Denver metro area's Regional Transportation District covers all or part of 8 counties, an eighth of the 64 counties in Colorado. According to RTDs site,

The University of Colorado A Line is 23 miles of rail that is making local and international travel easier than ever. The new line, which opened on April 22, 2016, provides easy, affordable and reliable connections between downtown Denver, Denver International Airport, and the many communities along I-70. With connections at Union Station to the C, E and W light rail lines, the G and B commuter rail lines later this year and local and regional buses, your public transportation options now have an international connection.

The international connection is Denver International Airport. In other words, it is now possible for someone in downtown to board a train at Denver Union Station and 37 minutes later, find themselves entering the protected grounds of the Federal TSA, en route to San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, London, Frankfurt, or even places as foreign and unfamiliar (to LoDo loft owners at least) as Colorado Springs or Grand Junction.



RTD has other rail lines, so why is this one different? Well, not a lot of cities opt for commuter rail. When proposed under the FasTracks plan, instead of a single standard of rail, like all light rail or retrofitting the existing light rail to do all commuter rail, RTD proposed the northern half of the metro area to be served by BRT (bus rapid transit) and commuter rail. This actually makes sense when you consider the effort and the market. Commuter rail's strengths and light rail's comparative weaknesses seem to open up the market to the Hyundai Rotem's Silverliner V cars.

For example, if you board a car, any car, you do so from an elevated platform, rolling luggage and all, and you are (at least in theory) able to move to the least crowded part of the train, even in motion. Another example: if you find yourself worried about making it through security and onto your flight in time, watch the motorman speed it up to 79 and don't sweat the double nickle limit light rail is limited to, a speed benefit of 24 MPH. Commuter rail, for all it's "back east" appearance, really does have its benefits in place for riders.



So, why is the new line called "University of Colorado A Line" by RTD? According again to RTDs site,

RTD is working to establish a long term corporate partnership program to expand revenue opportunities to support a variety of services and programs. The University of Colorado A Line is the first partnership agreement of its kind for RTD and we are excited to implement our first partnership agreement on the line to the airport.

In other words, without approval from its constituency, RTD decided to sell the naming rights, akin to city officials feeling entitled to auction the public's interest in naming the stadiums and other buildings built for their use. Never mind that it would be better for clarity for RTD to name the B Line as such because Boulder is home to the main campus.

Opinion

I had an amount of commentary of dubious quality that honestly doesn't need to be aired on this, the A Line's first day of revenue service, and the culmination of a $2.2 Billion project. Instead, I will sum it all up with 3 words:

It's. About. Time!

Welcome to the big leagues, Denver. Make rail work for you like it always has and you'll be in good shape.⚒

On This Date: Runaway Coal Train Pushed By Wind For Nearly 100 MIles

Wind damage is no stranger to the
northeastern Colorado plains. 
Photo: Sherrif Nestor, Lincoln
 County Sheriffs Office

This weekend marks a mostly forgotten, strange-but-true event that I find pretty remarkable. Fully 132 years ago, residents out on the eastern plains of Colorado and southwest Nebraska were experiencing a wind storm of such severity that, though it had no vortex or definable center, it did damage worthy of a tornado. It tore the roof off of Akron's roundhouse of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad. However, what was truly remarkable were the events of a couple hours on a Wednesday afternoon, March 23rd, 1884.

What follows is verbatim from Trains & Travel's August 1953 issue from a 1934 Railway Age article retelling of what the Lincoln, Nebraska State Journal reported (reprinted by the 1884 Railroad Gazette).

"It will be remembered that on Thursday^⚒ March 26, there was a wind which amounted almost to a tornado. At Akron, it unroofed the roundhouse and did other damage. About 5 o'clock that evening, the wind, at its strongest, started a train of eight box cars loaded with coal that was standing on the side track. This eight-car train ran through the split switch and on eastward over the main track. The track was nearly level, but some distance this side it is downgrade, and the wind was so strong that it moved the cars more rapidly than passenger-train speed.

"The operator at Akron noticed the runaway train as it broke loose and sent the alarm down the line. Everything was sidetracked and the crazy train had the right of way. The Cannon Ball train westward was sidetracked just in time. Marvelous as it may seem, those runaway cars ran 100 miles, passing eight stations, over a track which is for a great part of the distance almost perfectly level, with no propelling power but the wind and their own inertia. They ran the hundred miles in less than three hours, station agents and others holding their breath with awe as the cars whirled by at high speed. They passed Haiger [69 miles from Akron] at about 40 miles an hour and on the downgrade east of Akron are estimated to have run 20 miles in 18 minutes. At Benkelman, 95 miles from Akron, a freight engine was run out following the runaway train, and after a chase of a few miles, closed the gap between itself and the freight cars, and was coupled^⚔ to them." 

Notes
⚒ - The difference in days of the week, specifically Wednesday vs. Thursday, is likely because of an error of someone along the line counting the days from 1884 to 1953 to calculate the day of the week, quite possibly forgetting that 1900 was not a leap year. If it did occur on March 26, 1884, it was a Wednesday.

⚔ - Because it was prior to the Railroad Safety Appliance Act, passed in 1894 and effective 1900, it's not readily known if the rolling stock on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, which was the subsidiary of the CB&Q for the railroad in Colorado and Nebraska, were equipped with Janney automatic couplers, the rough predecessor to the standard coupler used today. If not, although a link-and-pin coupling might be difficult, mating a connection would still be possible, especially if it happened at a slower speed like 10 miles per hour.

Map of the Route

The idea of a runaway train, even 132 years ago, being pushed 100 miles by the wind might sound like a bunch of hokum at first, but a railcar with steel wheels on steel rails has a lot less rolling resistance than one might encounter with say a trailer or a wagon. Despite the characterization of the line as flat and relatively straight, the entire distance is mostly downgrade, losing 2,137 feet in altitude over 93.6 miles, yielding an average of -0.43% grade. I'm not sure if that's enough to keep a car rolling on it's own, but if straight-line winds of 60 or 80 MPH pushed on something broad and tall enough, it's more than likely to move along at quite a clip. Covering 20 miles in 18 minutes, 8 boxcars loaded with coal would be moving faster than 60 MPH! Imagine watching that roll through Yuma!

Is it possible it could happen again? Yes. Is it probable? I believe if given the right conditions, it would be probable, but not as likely today because of the difference in size and use of high side gondolas, along with higher emphasis on securing loads for safety.◊

POTD - Right At Home In the Tunnel District

Would you believe it's been 10 years since Colorado Railroads - www.corailroads.com - began? I wouldn't have realized it but for the fact that the Rio Grande Heritage Unit produced commissioned by Union Pacific is 10 years old next month. What a great job they did on that design! Having met the designers at the unveiling, I was pleased to tell them that they really did a great job capturing the feel of a very diverse railroad with a solid and, I believe, unifying design that, as far as I'm concerned, would look great in a production run! It's the least Union Pacific could do, considering how seldom the locomotive seems to make it through Colorado.

Photo of the Day: Mike Danneman

Mike Danneman captured the vagabond UP 1989 when the notch-nosed, brawny SD-70ACe was leading a comparatively grimey sister ACe. Mr. Danneman said the UP Heritage Unit "looks right at home exiting Tunnel 29 east of Pinecliffe, Colorado," heading east over former D&RGW territory in the Moffat Road's Tunnel District on July 10, 2006.◊