Bring Back the Mizpah Welcome Arch

Tom Noel, noted Colorado historian, wrote an Op-ed piece in today's Denver Post about the work to bring back the Welcome arch that stood at 17th and Wynkoop in front of Denver Union Station from 1906 to 1931. The hope is that this will be the first step toward restoring the interior of the station, something the current owner, RTD, has been neglecting. Interested parties can participate here.

The Ski Train Is Coming!

With enough effort and time, the improbable becomes the probable.

Union Pacific Railroad has agreed to allow a new Ski Train, between Denver Union Station and Winter Park, run by Amtrak and likely using Rio Grande Scenic Railroad equipment owned by the San Luis and Rio Grande, part of Iowa Pacific. Although the agreement between Amtrak and Iowa Pacific has yet to be completed, it appears that the biggest hurdle, an agreement with UP, has been cleared. Denver Union Station Planning Authority plans to accommodate Amtrak traffic at a temporary terminal north of the current station. The Denver Post reports the details.

WH Jackson Photography Exhibit At Western Mining Museum

William Henry Jackson was an early photographer who captured much of Colorado's scenic beauty during the early years of the state. His photograph of Mount of the Holy Cross was widely reproduced and hailed by many as a miraculous sign of Christianity. Much of his photography was taken of and near railroads. He was hired by General Palmer's baby railroad to take many of the pictures that remain hallmarks, showing the infancy and growth of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.
 

The Western Museum of Mining and Industry, also known as the Western Mining Museum, is hosting an exhibit of WH Jackson's work for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad starting two weeks from now, September 25th, and running until the end of the year. The museum is just north of Colorado Springs off I-25, open Monday - Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit the museum website. The rest of the museum is worth a look for all those interested in history and mechanical engineering, as well as the obvious mining and geology.

Ouray County Railroad Days

Ouray County over in the western San Juan Mountains is hosting Railroad Days this weekend. Indulge your inner rail geek and head on over.

When the Railroad Moved By ...Station Wagon?

Rare enough are photographs of the days of steam in Colorado. Rarer still are photos of odd equipment like pile drivers and the barrel transfer in Salida. Rarest of all are photos like this. Denver & Rio Grande Western auto 333 sitting at the top of Loveland Pass on US 6 in 1958! Company cars were a rare thing when the company moved on rails. Click here to visit the gallery.

Ski Train Reserving A Platform At Union Station

The news continues to be hopeful for the revival of the Ski Train with a letter to Union Station, but the true test will be Union Pacific.

The Union Pacific loves coal. It loves the little black diamonds that come out of the mines of Wyoming's Powder River Basin as much as those that come out of northwestern Colorado, mostly because the grade of coal is so good. Coal means cheap electrical power, but it also means heavy revenue that UP uses to keep its bottom line. Getting them to let a passenger train in the mix will interfere with that. Or will it?

Opinion
The success or failure of a revived Ski Train will also affect the east-west high-speed corridor proposal. Ed Ellis, head of the San Luis & Rio Grande shortline is doing Colorado a huge favor by going out on a limb with this business venture. Supporting him, the SL&RG and the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad is something most of us can do in some manner.

B Is For Billion

Now that it's hit the AP wires...

Colorado's future, if a future can be bought, will cost $21 Billion. That is the combined price of linking Denver with Vail and Ft. Collins with Pueblo by high-speed rail, according to the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority. Anyone with experience with Colorado's challenging topography and a hint of engineering sense knows that the prospect of pushing rails through the Rockies, not around them, is an expensive prospect. That it would cost billions of dollars was never in doubt, but the exact number of billions was not known until now. Some might say it's still not known, given that the project has not finished, let alone begun.

The Routes Studied

The merits of the RMRA's report on the feasibility of either link will be subject to the bluster of Nimbys, frustrated commuters, and paid consultants by the Prius- or Suburban-full. The probability of the Front Range line at up to 140 m.p.h. is much more likely than a line at 60 m.p.h. that would shave time off I-70, whether or not it is choked with traffic. It may even prove a good primer for Colorado's east-west venture. Billion, no matter the number, is something many people balk at, no matter the promise of Federal funding. CDOT needs to get moving.

Did Soapy Smith Work For the Rio Grande?

If the letter displayed on the Soapy Smith's Soapbox blog is credible and not a fabrication of Smith or a descendant, Smith worked as a "train baggag" (sic) manager for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad out of Pueblo for 14 months, ending in 1882. But hold on, it doesn't appear to be all it claims to be, as the blog lists several alternatives for the letter's origins.

For those unfamiliar, Soapy Smith was the con man's con man. From Denver to Creede, he ran games, swindled money and even charged money to view a "mummy" found in the mountains (the mummy was later found to be concrete). His end came not in Colorado, but Skagway, Alaska. Nonetheless, he was one of the most colorful characters to ride the railroads of Colorado.

UP 1989 Assists In Nuclear Fuel Drill

Union Pacific helped Denver Fire and other emergency services in a drill yesterday. The drill involved a truck striking a person and a train carrying a container of spent nuclear fuel. Sharp eyes will spot UP 1989, the Rio Grande heritage unit, on the head end. Denver's channel 7 news has the story.

October 2009 Trains Magazine Special Issue

If you did not receive your October issue of Trains magazine in the mail today, beg, borrow, or steal an issue! "NARROW GAUGE FEVER" headlines the issue and it delivers! Forty years to the month after the magazine's last major look at Colorado's narrow gauge, they come through again.

Map of the Month alone will pay for the issue. Had anyone figured how extensively narrow gauge was used? I would caution you that it's not to scale. Chama is not nearly as close to Durango as it appears on the map. Also, bear in mind that the Narrow Gauge Circle does not appear very well because much of it was abandoned and not converted to standard gauge.

The foldout for Midnight in Durango is beautiful! Summer nights in Durango are laden with coal smoke and the vivid dreams of 4- and 5 year-old boys whose love of trains have just begun.

Don't miss the photo essay, Return to the Land of the Narrow Gauge by John Gruber. Here's the link to the PDF offer of the 1969 photo essay. Back Issue articles also included in the PDF (Colorado narrow gauge articles in bold):

• “East Broad Top” By William Moedinger Jr., Pages 4-16, August 1941
• “Narrow Gauge to Santa Fe” By Forest Crossen, Pages 4-13, September 1941, a long, lingering look (for a magazine) at the Chili Line.
  
• “Florence & Cripple Creek” By L.C. McClure, Pages 4-5, December 1941, about the already abandoned Phantom Canyon line.
  
• “Down in Maine — Two-Footers” By Linwood W. Moody, Pages 28-29, February 1943
• “Main Line of the Narrow Gauge” By Harold M. Mayer, Pages 18-25, September 1944, details the Alamosa to Durango portion of the San Juan Extension, with a fine-toothed comb aimed at the passenger train named simply San Juan.
  
• “Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge” By Lucius Beebe, Pages 14-21, March 1947
• “Tweetsie’s Last Trip” By Jack Alexander, Pages 24-26, January 1951
• “Gateway to the Yukon” By F. L. Jaques, Pages 36-43, January 1951
• “What’s Right in Colorado” By Cornelius Hauck, Page 59, March 1955, a letter from Hauck on Richardson and Helfin's Alamosa efforts at the Narrow Gauge Motel, which would eventually become the Colorado Railroad Museum out in Golden
  
• “White Pass Meets Its Match” By Rosemary Entringer, Pages 36-37, February 1956
• “Into the Freezing Darkness” By Philip R. Hastings, Pages 48-56, April 1956, Hastings sleeps at the Narrow Gauge Motel before bucking the winter snows with now-cold D&RGW engine 499 on Cumbres Pass in 1955.
  
• “The Wide, Wide World of Narrow Gauge” By David P. Morgan, Cover, Pages 18-19, October 1969, a single-photo essay of the narrow gauge published on the eve of the abandonment of the narrow gauge from Antonito to Durango
  
• “God Made Snow for Farmers and Artists” By John Norwood, Pages 20-28, October 1969, long-time resident of the area, Norwood looks at the Chama turn over Cumbres clearing snow via rotary plow
  
• “Extra 498 and 493 West” By John Gruber, Pages 29-37, October 1969 (referenced offer), an effort to look at the Rio Grande's narrow gauge operation from the crew's vantage point
  
• “When All Roads Led to Durango” By William Moedinger, Pages 38-47, October 1969,
  
• “Out of a Misbegotten Idea, a Not Coincidental Charm” By David P. Morgan, Pages 48-49, October 1969, a single-photo essay on the RGS
  
• “The Nation’s Newest Narrow Gauge” By William H. McKenzie, Pages 22-25, April 1971, on the humble birth of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic
  

At a mere 104 pages, 13.8 MB, it seems a bit skimpy for those whose love of Colorado Narrow Gauge knows no bounds, but at $5.95, can anyone complain? I had practically no money and I still bought this! The profile of the Rio Grande narrow gauge grades from Alamosa to Pagosa Springs on page 33 is amazing! My only complaint is the ink is too light and requires some contrast work.

Forty years is a long time to wait, but it's beautiful, nonetheless.

Three Hobos Halt BNSF Freight In Glenwood Canyon

Three hobos climbed aboard a BNSF train on Saturday night (22nd) and got into one of the engines on the back of the train. Blowing the train's horn and tampering with the controls, they caused the train to dump its air in Glenwood Canyon. Triggering the emergency brakes on a moving freight is a class 3 felony. From the Glenwood Springs Post Independent:

According to the Garfield County Sheriff's Office, Bradley C. Sanders, 29, David Michael Delvisco, 25, and Mary Ellen Carter, 31, were charged with endangering public transportation, a class 3 felony, in Garfield County District Court Monday afternoon. If found guilty, the three face a possible penalty of between four and 12 years in prison and between $3,000 and $750,000 in fines, for the felony charge alone.

The train was carrying hazardous materials and, had the emergency braking caused the train to derail, the public's safety could have been endangered. The engineer never lost control, however, according to Steven Forsberg, BNSF media relations. The train stopped near the Bair Ranch Rest Area on I-70 in the canyon. They locked the locomotive's cab and ducked out of sight when the sheriff's deputies arrived. With the engineer's assistance, the deputies gained access to the cab and arrested the three, one of which was unconscious and intoxicated. The cab later required decontamination.

There's a romance to the rails, but I'm not sure this is it.

Ski Train Revival Takes Another Step Toward Reality

Iowa Pacific Holdings, the parent company of the San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad and the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad, both of Alamosa, took another step toward reviving the Ski Train. The Denver Post explains,

In a letter last week to the Denver Union Station Project Authority (DUSPA), Winter Park Resort president Gary DeFrange and Iowa Pacific president Ed Ellis said: "It is our understanding that DUSPA had plans to fund as well as accommodate the parking, loading and unloading of the Ski Train near Coors Field on a temporary basis during the redevelopment of Union Station."

Noting that the station authority intended to assist the Anschutz-owned train with the temporary platform, Ellis and DeFrange said Iowa Pacific hoped "to step in and operate a new version of the Ski Train this upcoming winter" with railcars that hold more than twice as many passengers as Anschutz's cars, thus making a temporary station easier to build.

By starting a relationship with DUSPA, Ellis and DeFrange are addressing one of two relationships that must be in place for the Ski Train's revival. The other relationship is with Union Pacific Railroad, the company that owns the tracks from Denver to Winter Park. Once those two are in place, we could see a Ski Train, in some form, later this year when ski season starts.

The real work is still ahead. Neither DUSPA or UP have any obligation to a new operator and rates for platform space as well as trackage rights to Winter Park could be so exorbitant that the ticket price, already likely to go up, would be well out of reach for most skiers. When Anschutz sold the Ski Train, he cited rising costs above and beyond what he was already paying to keep the operation going, something no one expected a new operator to take on.

On the other hand, no one expected an expanded, standard gauge passenger train over La Veta Pass a few years ago, but the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad has made it a regular, daily operation. A lot of people can start up a railroad service, but fewer can keep it running year-in, year-out, especially in this economy. Something tells me that Iowa Pacific is serious enough about the Ski Train. The question is, will DUSPA and UP listen?

More to read:

• DP: Fond Farewell to Ski Train
• CR: The Ski Train
• Rio Grande Scenic Railroad
  
• DUS: What is DUSPA
• Winter Park Resort
• Old Ski Train site