Denver History Still Lives ...If You Know Where To Look

Baseball fans, especially Colorado Rockies fans, already know Coors Field is special. Constructed between 1993 and 1995, Coors Field--named in perpetuity for the beer that brought baseball here--became the cornerstone of a downtown Denver revitalization project, and its effects have not stopped for nearly 30 years! This is no booster speech; it is simply acknowledging a proven fact.

Without Coors Field, it's fair to say that businessmen and builders like former-Mayor-and-then-Governor John Hickenlooper would have had much more difficulty attracting investors and generating momentum for businesses and projects that got started or are now based out of lower downtown, LoDo to the locals. Without Coors Field, the renovation and redevelopment of Denver Union Station would probably never have happened. The FasTracks rail and transit project would have been more difficult to sell and Denver's suburbs would have been as isolated as they were in the 70s and 80s, and sprawling ever outward even more than they do today. LoDo is now synonymous with revitalized and reinvigorated urbanized living. The strong popularity of such a lifestyle has produced another re- adjective: regentrification. If you have lived anywhere in Colorado in the past 25 years, you have benefitted in some small way from this LoDo effect. 

All of these "re-s" have effects both bad and good. What's also apparent is that the optimism keeps popping up and spawning new challenges and opportunities. For example, I was more than a little unnerved by the relentless construction and development. Was no one going to remember the railroads of downtown or the Moffat Road depot or the lines that ran through Auraria? The viaducts or the Postal Annex, the yellow-bricked monstrosity that sat south of Union Station is gone, hauled away in 2005. What of the Denver of before?

It may not be possible to preserve everything, but we can still build with an eye to our past as well as the future. The Oxford is still with us. Denver's Union Station has never stopped serving all passenger trains climbing and descending to the Mile High City, save for a renovation. The Union Pacific Freight Office persists (at least outside) as the Denver Chop House. But I shuddered when I saw construction barricades going up right next to it. This was hallowed ground. This was where Gen. William J. Palmer laid the first rails of his beloved Baby Road, the narrow gauge Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. What were they doing to this spot? I didn't have far to look: McGregor Square.

Yes, the west corner of the giant Colorado Rockies-built development is built right off the spot in the street where Palmer spiked his rails. So imagine my surprise when I found that one of the establishments in the complex is called "Milepost Zero!" No! I thought, This can't be! Do they really know? And although it does not mention the Denver & Rio Grande or its later incarnations by name, their site says the following:

In Denver’s early days, the railroad became the center of everything. Across the street from what is now Coors Field was where the tracks began – mile post zero. Today, McGregor Square sits in the center of everything Denver has to offer.

It all starts here. Welcome to Milepost Zero.

Milepost Zero is the simply great, convenient choice in Denver’s Ballpark neighborhood. Your home-base for shopping, dining, entertainment, gameday, exploration and everything in between, Milepost Zero serves up something for everyone in the family.

Explore the concepts in our food hall, grab a drink at the bar or pour yourself a beer from our extensive Beer Wall selections. No matter what you’re in the mood for, you can enjoy your favorites in our expansive indoor space or outdoor plaza at the heart of McGregor Square. Catch the game on our giant outdoor plaza screen or just watch the action in the square while you fuel up or wind down. 

When I next visit Coors Field and hopefully watch a Rockies game, I plan to visit Milepost Zero and hopefully partake and imbibe. It's the least I could do for such a history-minded proprietorship, even if the prices are above and beyond what I would usually pay.⚒

Jim Wrinn, Passionate Advocate and Colorado Railfan, 61

This is a post I'd rather not write. I will keep it brief. 

Perhaps one of the greatest friends to the railroads of Colorado, indeed certainly to live outside of the state and within the last 30 years, has passed on March 30, 2022. Jim Wrinn, for 17 years Editor of Trains Magazine, had a long battle with pancreatic cancer before it stole him from our midst. I wish I could say this is the only friend I've lost to the monster, but I can't. It has the highest mortality rate of all the cancers, with a 5-year survival rate of just 11%, or 9 out of 10 diagnosed die within 5 years. 

Yes we all die. Yes, I believe that something wondrous and glorious awaits only some of us. I believe I will see him again. That doesn't take away the pain of goodbye. And certainly not someone who was generous with his time and energy to someone like me. We weren't that close, but he made me feel a part of his world, and that counts for a lot for someone disabled.

Jim was no stranger to the Antonito, to Durango, to Denver, or many of the points around and between. He realized a hope at the Victorian Iron Horse Roundup (archive) by re-enacting a shot from Trains' long past covers only last year (above). Had COVID delayed it again, he wouldn't have lived to see it. I am personally gratified it did not and he did.

His obituary at Trains contains the following quote of Fred W. Frailey:

“Every writer wants an editor, a boss, who says yes, . . . Forget what ‘yes’ means — it can mean anything. Jim Wrinn always said ‘yes,’ even when it was no because he made it seem like yes. I love the guy.”

Adios, my friend. ⚒

Trains 1963: D&RGW 3600's Out of Minturn

Mention Rio Grande steam in railfan circles and immediately what comes to most minds? The diminutive narrow gauge steamers of the Cumbres and Toltec or Durango and Silverton. Few think of the main line steam giants of Challengers, cousins of recently retired UP 3985, or mallets with massive 40-inch low pressure drivers living on as class L-96s. Indeed, half of the steam legacy of the Rio Grande has vanished like water vapor on the Colorado wind. It is the most vivid reason steam preservation programs continue to endure 80 years after the zenith of steam. Provide the experience of the raw power and romantic beauty of steam and watch it fire young imaginations!

Yet we do have some signs of the passing of standard gauge Rio Grande steam. Photos of brawny giants reside in collections large and small. One of the largest remains the Denver Public Library Western History Collection. No less beloved are books like the Colorado Railroad Museum's Rio Grande Locomotives and Robert LaMassena's  Denver & Rio Grande Western: Superpower Railroad of the Rockies published in 1999. 

Perhaps the most meaningful are the personal accounts like that of John Hill and Dave Straight from 2015. More widely known is a much younger Robert LaMassena's account of the 3600s Out of Minturn published by Trains in 1963. Reproduced here by permission, he recalls the run over the Continental Divide with peaches from Grand Junction and Palisade. On a side note, Palisade peaches are one of the most wonderful parts of late summer in Colorado, second only to the fall colors. I can remember with perfect clarity my most recent ripe peach from Grand Junction in all its giant, sweet, juice dribbling glory! They are incredible! If you are here in late August or early September, do not miss your opportunity to eat your fair share.

To read in full resolution, tap or click the image to view it

D&RGW 3600s Out of Minturn

by Robert A. LaMassena
Trains magazine, April 1963

Finally, this article was reproduced from Trains 1940 - 2010, but for access to thousands of other articles published since October 1940 to today's issue, all you need to do is subscribe to Trains with an Unlimited subscription. I'm finding my own self-paid subscription to Trains unlimited very handy. ⚒

Last Light at Palmer Lake

Here is just a quick highlight of a photo that looks so nice it's worth sharing. 

This photo of a BNSF GE unit at Palmer Lake is from Flickr user Bob, whose recent work on the Joint Line shows a good deal of promise. He shoots army tanks in the fog, too! If nothing else, his buying an SLR would not be wasted money! Great work, Bob! I hope to see more soon. ⚒

A Non-Travel Vlogger Takes Amtrak's Southwest Chief

I've been watching Alec, a vlogger--I hate using that word, but it is what it is, and his channel called Technology Connections for more than two years now. He has a knack for asking the questions I've always wondered about American technology like, 

• What's with the holes in the tines of US plugs? 
• Are extension cords more dangerous than we've been led to believe? Hint: yes! 🔌
• Are LED stop lights really that much better than incandescent? 🚦
• Why is High the first setting on most fans? 
• Was VHS actually superior to Beta? Oooh, he's meddling in an old format war! 📼

Alec took a cross-country trip on Amtrak this past August and, being an Amtrak newbie, he splurged and bought a roomette ticket. He admits he's not a railfan or a travel blogger, so it's not like he has all sorts of tips and tricks. You can get those elsewhere, one might hope, anyway. His route was from Chicagoland to sunny San Diego by way of LA and the Southwest Chief.

En route, Alec posed some very interesting thoughts and--this is why I watch him folks!--he nailed one of the main reasons why long distance rail has struggled in America. Nevermind that passenger rail was usurped by an independence-minded but vastly inefficient technology like rubber tires-on-asphalt. Nevermind that Amtrak was never supposed to make money--he got that right too, however. He said essentially that while the cost of a sleeper ticket is mostly out of the range of most Americans, additionally, working people in the USA are too time-poor to be able to splurge 3-5 days on travel. If you want to make a trip to the east or west coast from Colorado, you book it through DIA and not DUS not because "getting there is not half the fun!" but because your damnable HR policy only gives you one weeks vacation the first three years, if you're lucky! That's not right, and we all know it.

The USA is not in an emergency. We are not even trying to beat the Russians to the moon--we're just trying to get there sometime soon. We're not even trying to keep someone else from subjugating the world, like we did in WW2. We are working ourselves to the bone and why? Our kids need us. Our families need us. Our lives need us. We last added a day to the weekend over a century ago and productivity soared! Doing that again isn't a terrible idea. Certainly adding some more time off would help. 

I'm not saying we overturn society. I'm not advocating a shift to communism. I'm saying we need to give our employees time to live a life worthy of the effort of living. The rest of the world gives their employees a much more sane consideration. It's time we do too. Until we do, reasonable rail travel will continue to be a luxury and worse, society will continue to slide downhill. No, I am very serious.⚒

Further Reading:

• CNBC - How Far Behind America Is In Paid Time Off (2018)
• Workest - How Much is Average PTO in the U.S.? (2021)
• US Bureau of Labor and Statistics - Employer Costs for Employee Compensation by Region (2021)

Email Subscriber Notice

If you subscribe to Colorado Railroads by email, changes are coming. Our syndication is through Feedburner, once an independent company that, after being absorbed by Google, is scaling back its service to just an RSS service, without its helpful email administration. Blah blah blah, corporate-speak, technogargle technobabble blah. 

What this means is that until I find an e-mail service, probably something like Constant Contact, further email contact from Colorado Railroads may be in doubt. If you like what content I've been able to provide and want to keep hearing from me, please let me know. That way, whatever happens, I will be sure to keep you in the list. Hit reply or click here. I hope to hear from you soon!⚒

Steve Walden
editor, Colorado Railroads

POTD - Big Boy Under Threatening Skies

Photo of the Day: BUFFIE

Earlier this month, Union Pacific's Steam collective in Wyoming needed to stretch their Big Boy's legs before beginning their summer trip to New Orleans. A quiet trip to Denver seemed to be in order. Intrepid Denver-based rail photographer BUFFIE caught up with UP 4014 leaving Platteville on the trip back north to Cheyenne. The threatening skies and ideal lighting and classic black-and-white subject make it an easy candidate for Photo of the Day.⚒