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.

Steamer 8444 and a UP special
wait next to the Rio Grande
Zephyr in October 1978 at
Denver's Union Station

A while ago, I happened upon a quiet place of the web made by Gary Morris, a photographer who took it upon himself to learn html and host his own picture site. This was before the days of flickr and SmugMug, when folks like Kevin Morgan and Nathan Holmes pioneered their own Rio Grande picture sites, both incorporating the railroad's reporting mark into their URL.

Gary's Rio Grande page still soldiers on, serving up a dose of Grande photos that are irreplaceable memories of an era that's gone forever. No doubt in 30 years we'll remember the days before PTC, days when antiquated polluters like the SD-70 were commonplace, and when there were four class-I freight railroads instead of just two. That's more than enough justification for you and me to get outside tomorrow and fill up our cameras with photographs of these fast-flying days.