POTD - Isolated in Leadville

The last remnant of the Denver, South Park and Pacific being operated today is the Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad. From 1899, it was part of the C&S consolidation of narrow gauge lines--the ones not associated with Rio Grande. In the 40s, the line was standard gauged, operating for a short time with 4 rails to prevent any service disruption. From the 40s to the 60s, C&S #641 moved cars from the Climax mine at the top of Fremont Pass down to the connection with Rio Grande outside Leadville. After 641 retired, she was put on display in Leadville while a Burlington Northern road switcher took over her duties.

Colorado & Southern standard gauge steamer rests outside the Leadville,
Colorado & Southern depot in Leadville, Colorado one hot day in August 1999
Photo: Jeff Jordan

POTD - Fort Collins Municipal Railway's Birney Car 21

Before T-Rex, before Light Rail, even before buses, there were street cars. If a town had any aspirations of being a city of some importance, one of the first items on the agenda was creating a municipal railway or other rapid transit. It was a mark of distinction to have a trolley system and the bigger and more refined it was, the better the populace felt about the city.

Then, depending on who you listen to, it seems a motor company decided it wanted to sell buses. The best way to do that was to buy up municipal railways and discard them as soon as possible, doing away with the efficient steel wheel on steel rail and electric power in favor of inefficient rubber tires on asphalt and gasoline power that was cheap as dirt. No more yellow trolleys in Denver. Done to death are the streetcars of Trinidad and Colorado Springs. But a single flickering flame in Fort Collins survived.

Kept by volunteers, the Fort Collins Municipal Railway plies Mountain Avenue, connecting City Park with the central business district on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays during the summer months. There once was much more to this municipal railway, but it's lost to the march of time and mankind's notion of progress in the 1950s. It once crossed the rails of the Colorado Central (now BNSF), and traveled in a loop, from Mountain and College, east to Peterson, south to Magnolia, east to Whedbee, south to Pitkin and Ft Collins High School, west to College and back north to Mountain. It covered a lot of ground and, had it survived intact, it would be an even greater asset to Fort Collins than it is today.

Ft Collins Municipal Railway #21 makes its familiar trip down Mountain Avenue
passing the siding at Mack Street, long out of service, on July 23, 2011.
Photo: James E. House

Railroad Yards Contain Locomotives, Rolling Stock, and Danger

BNSF Police
shoulder patch

As a railfan just 15 years ago, it was hard for me to appreciate the railroads' point of view when it came to allowing access to their yard. I can remember at least one encounter when, looking into a railroad policeman's eyes, I could tell what frustration and anger my "idiocy" had caused. Moments before, I felt I was safe because it was a hot summer day and no one was out there making any moves. No one except the police man, I found out. His face reminded me of how my father's looked when I had one time wandered into danger. I didn't enjoy either experience.

Railroad Radio in Colorado

If you've never listened to Railroad Radio, you've missed an opportunity to learn all about how freight moves in Colorado. It takes a bit of patience and knowledge of the nature of railroad operations, but, having it on in the background, you'd be surprised what you can pick up.

It's also a good indicator, given how expensive gas is recently, of how busy these rail routes are on a given day. Careful listening will help you know where the trains are, and how likely a photo run will produce good results.

All three live audio feeds are linked below and in the near column.

Railroad Radio in Colorado

• BNSF Front Range Sub - Denver to Cheyenne
• BNSF/UP Joint Line - Denver to Pueblo
• UP Moffat Line - Winter Park to Tabernash

 

POTD - D&RGW 315 Leads the Parade of Trains

Denver & Rio Grande Western Consolidation 2-8-0 pulls the first of several
trains into the depot at Durango during Railfest on August 21, 2010
Photo: Kevin Madore

POTD - Grande Colors In Strange Places

Just south of where I-70 and I-270 meet, there's a place unknown to most Denver railfans. It's even--probably--unknown to most Denver Railroaders. If you would think this is Commerce City, you would be wrong. First, very few areas in Commerce City are capable of sustaining green plant life. Second, the junction of I-70 and I-270 is roughly 1,400 miles to the east of Commerce City in Frederick, Maryland. Why then is this the Photo of the Day on CR?

When you look closely, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway has no connection to Colorado with the exception that many of the upper management of W&LE used to call Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad home until they followed head executive Larry Parsons to the smallish short line in Ohio. Their love of their old railroad comes through in big and small ways. Recently, the railroad's ample power pool and tenacity in business led to their units showing up in other locations, including CSX trackage in Point Of Rocks, Maryland, many miles east of Rio Grande's old headquarters in Denver.

Wheeling & Lake Erie shows her Rio Grande colors in the muggy heat near
Point of Rocks, Maryland last week on July 30, 2011 waiting for a green light.
Photo: George W. Hamlin

PS: Interested in the Grande scheme of things in Ohio? Check out this fan page detailing the Wheeling & Lake Erie's motive power. It's a big page!

Mudflow, Debris Shortens Route of Durango Train

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad had to shorten its route today after high water and debris--mostly mud--from rains made a mess of things in the Animas River canyon. Tuesday's trips had already made it to Silverton when the mudflows occurred, tying up the track and forcing at least two trains to return to Silverton and wait for buses to take them from there back to Durango via US 550.

POTD - Empty Hoppers In the Sunset

From a river named "The Animas" in the San Juan mountains to a town named Las Animas on the eastern plains, it's hard to believe they're in the same world, let alone the same state at the same rough latitude (0.5° difference). From narrow gauge Rio Grande rails hung precariously on canyon walls to standard gauge Santa Fe rails somewhere in a vast prairie, these are Colorado Railroads!

Empty Hoppers In the Sunset - Coal hoppers wait their turn for service in beside a
piece of disused rail in the quiet town of Las Animas, Colorado, on June 16, 2008
Photo: Jenny Vaughn

POTD - D&RGW 315 Crossing the Animas River

John West is an accomplished photographer with many years of experience and hundreds of publishable and historic photographs under his belt, 13 of which are available for purchase. His pictures bring narrow gauge enthusiasts immeasurable joy and pleasure.

Originally Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad engine 3, the Denver & Rio Grande numbered it 424 before the Denver & Rio Grande Western numbered it 315.  Durango Railroad Historical Society restored the engine from March 2001 until she moved under her own steam in August 2007.

On August 23, 2010, during last year's Railfest, Mr. West captured #315, a former Denver & Rio Grande Western 2-8-0 steam locomotive as it crossed the Animas River near Tacoma, Colorado, on former Denver & Rio Grande Western rails, now operated by Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, which will host its 13th annual Railfest later this month.

D&RGW Consolidation 2-8-0 #315 leads a photo freight over the Animas near
Tacoma on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad August 23, 2010
Photo: John West

 

POTD - 135 Years of Statehood, Rail Tourism

Today's POTD honors Colorado and her 135 years of statehood. Prior to August 1, 1876, Colorado was a territory carved out of portions of Kansas Territory and Utah Territory with smaller parts of the Nebraska and New Mexico Territories. Since it was the only state admitted to the union that year, the centennial of the United States, Colorado became known as the Centennial state.

Property speculators and railroads were anxious to entice settlers and pioneering families to come west and generate revenue by living and working out there. While trappers and later miners were eager to make a fortune off the land, farmers, tradesmen and other people that make lasting communities weren't typically as anxious to risk all in a move out west. Unscrupulous promoters wrote fifictitious accounts, one even going so far as to claim that steam boats were departing daily at Denver on the South Platte River. As you can see from this photo, even with modern-day dams keeping the South Platte flowing year round, the river--if you can call it that--would not be navigable by such craft. Such fiction was unfortunately common and many would-be settlers would not trust written accounts. Therefore, it was all the more important that photographs were taken and reproduced as much as possible showing Colorado to be a land open to new settlers and the skills they had or were willing to learn. Photos that depicted the scenic wonders of the west were just as helpful in promoting the nascent tourism industry.

Railroad travel and tourism in Colorado got a healthy boost from the work of William Henry Jackson, whose photographs brought on a continuous flow of curious and moderately wealthy tourists who had never seen such drama and beauty. One such photograph is of Toltec Gorge along the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Jackson made trips up and down the line in a photographer's special train that usually included a mobile dark room for his plate glass negatives. His train is just barely visible (top right) from this point in the canyon, nearly 800 feet below the tracks.

A D&RG train steams above the floor of Toltec Gorge on the San Juan
Extension. The undated photograph is between 1878 and 1898 (maybe 1880?)
Photo: Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Such a view (from the top, anyway) is still available today on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, which took the Rio Grande's property and turned it into a thriving heritage railroad.

If you are interested in the history, the Colorado Railroad Museum has a new exhibit, Trains and Tourism in Colorado. It opened this summer and has a great deal of historic artifacts. Imagine columbines, Colorado's state flower, being gathered by the armful on "Wildflower Excursions" over a century ago, where the ticket was $1.50, which would be about $34.92 today.¹

¹ - Converted per scale at MyKindred.com

POTD - Maintenence

I said on Wednesday that it was a two-parter and this being Friday, I'm sure you're expecting something different. It is something different ...sort of. Actually, it's the same photographer, and the same subject, a steam engine, is involved, but that's where the similarities end.

Christopher May got my attention with this black-and-white image of two volunteers at the Colorado Railroad Museum during Shay Days. It is titled very simply, Maintenance, and it highlights a fundamental truth that it is not just a steam engine that works to keep the steel wheels in motion over steel rails. Each iron beast, steam or diesel, standard gauge or narrow, represents many, many man-hours of hard work, heat, pressure, oil and tools exhausted in keeping the rails plied with people, consumables and goods. Sometimes it's a gantry crane lifting a multi-ton assembly for a 2-dollar part replacement that gets focused attention. Today, it was near a cylinder on the geared drivetrain of a Shay locomotive at a narrow-gauge haven in Golden.

Incidentally, there are times when a photograph invites a black-and-white shot treatment, but this one fairly stands up and demands it. Great work, Chris!

West Side Lumber Shay engine #12 gets a hand or two during some Maintenance at
Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO on May 14, 2011 during "Shay Days."
Photo: Christopher May/GhoSStrider

POTD - An Hour Or Two Earlier Makes the Difference

Today's Photo of the Day is the second by GhoSStrider, as Christopher May is known on flickr. This was apparently on the same trip, taken earlier in the day as the sun was still in its sunrise mode. As you can see in comparison with yesterday's POTD, which was taken later, the passage of a "couple hours" can change everything. Change the light in color, angle or both, you change the photograph. The rich color really comes through, even with the grass and the grain elevator.

Northern Colorado, which varies in area with whom you ask, is part of the Colorado Front Range Urban Corridor. Despite this "urban" definition, the people and landscape of this strip between Cheyenne and Denver is a mix of semi-industrial, suburban, and commercial islands strung like pearls along the I-25, US 85, and US 287 lifelines linking the two cities, surrounded by vast agricultural ventures that epitomize rural, non-urban life. Any journey out east will tell you that urban isn't what they should call the Front Range piedmont. Coming out of Brighton as the 844 works its way north, the landscape shifts agrarian for the first but not the last time.

The best part--from a railfan's point of view--about the old Denver Pacific line is that, despite its history, it's not all that old. UP maintenance crews have kept this line in good shape, and the relatively level grade lets 844 pick up some speed on its way.

Union Pacific 4-8-4 #844 paces down the rails through Brighton on a beautiful
Saturday morning July 23, 2011 on her way to Cheyenne's Frontier Days in WY
Photo: GhoSStrider