Train Strikes Private Bus In Colorado Springs

According to KKTV 11 News, a private tour bus belonging to the Canadian rap group Swollen Members was smashed by an oncoming freight train last night as it was stuck on the tracks.

McFadyen Suggests Tennessee Pass Be Re-opened

It's hard for anyone to take a name like Buffie McFadyen seriously, but since she's a State Representative, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter had to take her seriously when she asked him to pressure Union Pacific to reopen the Tennessee Pass line.

More Derailment Photos

As reported last week, there was a bit of spectacular derailment on the Moffat line right over Colorado Highway 72, dropping a hopper onto the roadway below and spilling several cars down the embankment toward the CDOT depot.

Silverton Mixed & Marshall Pass On YouTube

As the digital age progresses, we'll see more and more digital media used to bring us glimpses of Colorado's railroading past. Of particular interest to a lot of railfans are the operations along the narrow gauge circle.

Derailment At Coal Creek Canyon Closes Highway 72

Derailments are as old as railroading and minor incidents seldom are newsworthy. There is the exception, and this certainly qualifies. An empty freight train derailed 8 cars while crossing the overpass of Colorado Highway 72 at the entrance to Coal Creek Canyon in Jefferson County, dropping a hopper car onto the highway below. No injuries on the train or highway were reported.

Kevin Morgan Returns

After a long absence, Kevin Morgan and his Colorado Railfan site have returned with new content! His coverage of the UP 1989 Rio Grande Heritage Unit heading up the snow bus west of Denver is the first of 9 planned photo essays soon to appear on his site.

The Streetcar In The Basement

History sometimes shows up in the oddest places. A couple who bought a new home built on an old foundation recently discovered that they had a streetcar in their basement.

C-470 Flyover For Southwest Light Rail Extension

It's always been on RTD's to-do list to extend the Southwest light rail extension, currently running from Broadway and Mississippi to Santa Fe and Mineral. Exactly how far and where has been a question ever since they built the original extension in 1999. Now we know.

The main expense will be a flyover taking the light rail line over all 4-6 lanes of C-470 onto the south side of the highway. This would be a separate flyover from the CDOT-planned flyover running the same way from southbound Santa Fe to eastbound C-470, eliminating a nasty left-hand turn that has run at capacity or over capacity ever since the interchange was constructed. The CDOT flyover would go over the highway, over/under the BNSF/UP Joint Line bridges and under the RTD flyover.

All this lacing with concrete will work to eat up the funds of FasTracks, which already is in trouble because of the lost revenues because of the financial depression. Nevermind that one of the two planned stations isn't accounted for in the FasTracks plan. This is not good.

Despite the cost, RTD and Denver need this extension. It will relieve the pressure at the Mineral station, which is currently the southern terminus. Additionally, it will establish a direct link with C-470 at one/two interchanges, which will lure commuters coming in from Ken Caryl, Kipling, and Wadsworth from the west. Finally, it links the Highlands Ranch neighborhood directly to the Light Rail system, which should be a deep mine for RTD to draw from for decades to come. Sometimes a tree only needs to cross a few inches of clay to reach the aquifer for explosive growth. If RTD can cross the belt highway, they may do the same thing.

More on Kevin Flynn's Inside Lane

Boulder Dinner Train

Could Boulder support a dinner train?

That's the question I find myself asking as I contemplate this announcement by RTD covered in the Denver Post. RTD is hoping to lease the remaining trackage and right-of-way left over from the purchase of a former UP line for FasTracks. The agency volunteering to take up this lease is the Boulder County Railway Historical Society, which of late, lost it's web site, www.boulderrail.org. They do have rolling stock, mostly freight and in various states of repair. Would such an agency be able to handle the demand? Would instead the folks at the Royal Gorge or the Rio Grande & San Luis be more qualified and better equipped? A lot of gears are turning. Let's hope something good and railworthy results!

Great Train Expo In Denver

Ever the masters of advance publicity, the Great Train Expo announced this week that they're in Denver this very same weekend.

So, tomorrow and Sunday, November 7 - 8, 2009, visit the Great Train Expo at the National Western Complex. Admission is $7 for adults and kids over 12. Kids under 12 are free. Admission covers both days. The show's hours are 10 AM - 4 PM both days.

Other upcoming shows:

• Great Train Expo in Colorado Springs at the Phil Long Expo Center on January 16-17, 2010
• World's Greatest Hobby Tour in Denver at the National Western Complex, February 20-21, 2010
  

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Buffett Buys BNSF

Financial emperor Warren Buffett has been buying up BNSF shares for years, but even in the first 48 hours since the announcement, this much is known about Berkshire Hathaway's $34 Billion purchase: Buffett is betting the farm on American rail.

Buffett believes that American coal will continue to produce in the long term, carried by Rio Grande-like unit trains from western sources such as the Wyoming and Colorado coal fields. He also believes that the American economy will rebound, once again driving demand for cheap and easy imports from China and the Pacific Rim to Wal-Mart and Sears aboard BNSF container trains from Washington and California ports.

Little if any impact is expected at the operations level. In a letter to BNSFs customers, John Lanigan stated,

You will not see any changes in the weeks and months ahead. Our leadership will remain in place and focused on providing value to our customers.

BNSFs Ft. Worth, Texas-based operations will remain in Ft. Worth. Largely, this looks like a move that's behind the scenes. The funny thing about those behind-the-scenes moves, however, is that they have an uncanny way of driving long-term strategies. Is this the anticipated move that sets the "fabled" next round of mergers in action that pairs BNSF and UP with their East Coast counterparts CSX and NS? What would this mean for the plans of high speed rail? If mergers happen, they will happen in the next 12 months. That's just a hunch based off the last round in 1995-96 where Conrail was divided up between CSX and NS and BN and Santa Fe merged, forcing UP to buy Southern Pacific from Colorado's Phil Anschutz.

Off-Road And On Track At the Alpine Tunnel

An off-road vehicle is often your best choice for exploring the sites of Colorado's extensive railroad history. It therefore follows that some members of the off-road vehicle groups would find some crossover interest. The folks at UTV Weekly put together a nice piece on Hancock Pass and the Alpine Tunnel, complete with photos.

The Alpine Tunnel was an endeavor by the Denver, South Park & Pacific (wikipedia), a narrow gauge railroad founded in 1872 with a small but hardy following among narrow-gauge railfans. In 1889, the DSP&P became the Denver, Leadville, & Gunnison (UP-controlled) and then in 1898, part of the Colorado & Southern system. The Alpine Tunnel was in use from 1881 to 1910, connecting Leadville and the Arkansas River Valley with Gunnison and the western slope.

Having visited the site a few years ago, I can tell you that the progress at the Alpine Tunnel historic district is noticeable, but slow. Hard, grueling work is complicated by the short summer--if you can call it that--along with the high altitude and lack of funding, things that conspired to prevent the original route from completion and continued operation. If you look at the photos, you'll see that even the memorials are not immune to the harsh conditions. Yet it is all worth a visit, if only to see the beauty of the state and embrace the history of men who bravely fought and died facing the worst conditions Colorado's Rocky Mountains could throw at them.


Further & Related

• What's a UTV?
  
• UTV Weekly also covered the Alpine Loop.
• Denver, Leadville & Gunnison #191, the oldest native locomotive in Colorado, recently returned to display at the Colorado Railroad Museum after a full cosmetic restoration.