The Impact of The Great Pueblo Flood of 1921

While our Centennial State of Colorado celebrated 150 years just weeks ago and a month earlier our nation celebrated its 250th birthday, "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," still a month earlier, Colorado's oldest city marked 105 years since the Great Pueblo Flood of June 3, 1921. 

View of Union Depot in the aftermath of the 1921 flood in Pueblo, Colorado, shows debris and destruction. Piles of timber and beams are stacked against overturned railroad passenger cars. Mud and debris from the receded flood waters extends to the railroad station platform of Union Depot. Empty and loaded railroad baggage carts are next to a group of men.
Denver Public Library Special Collections, X-10846

My favorite PBS program (at least since 3-2-1 Contact was taken off the air) Colorado Experience showed the glory of Pueblo in 1921, the height from which she fell and the ways in which she never really recovered. Who better to tell us all than the children of those who lived through it?

Of particular interest, the interspersed details of what this flood did to shape the future of railroads in Colorado. While I did know that four railroads converged on Pueblo, Including the Denver & Rio Grande, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Missouri Pacific and the Colorado and Southern, I was surprised to hear that the Rio Grande was disproportionately affected by the flood,  Did you know that public reaction to this flood paved the way for Denver and the Moffat Road to become the primary railroad hub for the 20th century and beyond? To create a district with the power to build the Pueblo flood-proof barrier on the north side of the Arkansas River, state legislators had to trade votes allowing Denver to create the Moffat Tunnel Improvement District. Pueblo still profited from the levy in the form of lower insurance rates for the next 100 years for the businesses of Pueblo's historic downtown. But Denver got her direct connection with Grand Junction and Colorado's western slope communities. Who profited more? I wonder.

Of course, this episode rightly focuses on the human cost of the tragedy. Perhaps the most difficult of all the facts is that we still do not know how many families and individuals were swept away by the floods. Not knowing who was lost and struggling to piece together lost lives shows that we still do not value human life, all human life no matter the color, income bracket, creed or vocation. That should change. It must change, but I wonder if it will. ⚒

Colorado Experience - The Ski Train

Colorado Experience, the Rocky Mountain PBS series is now in its 11th season, having run since 2013 on Public Broadcasting System stations in Denver, Colorado Springs / Pueblo, Steamboat Springs, Grand Junction, and Durango. It's 11th season is a promising addition to the series, but what most of the readers of CR would be interested to know about is the episode titled "The Ski Train," which premiered at the Colorado Railroad Museum on October 15th and broadcast throughout the state later the same week. The episode is viewable via YouTube below.

Like all television programs, its difficult for producers and editors to decide what parts are essential and what parts are niche interest or broadly appealing but only tangent to the subject covered. How are you going to convey the subject, and whose narrative are you going to use to tell the story? Sometimes practicality limits the voices involved, and sometimes politics--public or merely human polity--limits what you can say. If you claim to represent the public interest, how far do you run down certain trails before you decide you're going too far from the audience? 

I had to ask myself these questions given my own perceptions and concerns about a very difficult time for Denver, for the Ski Train, and for me. As detailed in the episode, Denver's Ski Train, an institution started by Rio Grand from the the 1940s and earlier died a hard and painful death in 2009, when Ansco decided it could no longer continue the operations. That much is in the episode.

It was a difficult time for Denver because in 2009, it was in the throes of the Great Recession. On what is no doubt a related decision, Ansco determined it could no longer support The Ski Train, which admittedly had become more a labor of love by Denver philanthropist Phillip Anschutz. For me, 2009 had me 4 years into a disability determination case in which I had gone deep into debt trying to keep my family housed, heated, and fed while struggling to do any meaningful work in the face of my gradually increasing physical disability. Those times have thankfully passed for all involved with varying extents of recovery, yet some questions of the past still remain unanswered. 

The disposition of the fleet was for the most part to one operator, the Algoma Central for use in their Agawa Canyon train tour near Sault Ste Marie, Ontario in Canada. The possibility of relaunching the Ski Train as it was had gone forever. There would only be the future attempts to launch a new service. Attempts, plural, which were not covered in the episode and which I won't detail here because indisputable facts are hard to come by. 

Nonetheless, the current incarnation, known as the Amtrak Winter Park Express is not the first effort, but by far the most successful. No doubt much is owed to Amtrak Conductor Brad Swartzwelter, who is in the episode below. I have chatted with personally and I hope you get to meet someday. He is a rare breed and one I hope will continue to ride the rails throughout Colorado.

I am glad the tradition of a ski train, whatever the name, still survives. The goal has always been so people can still avoid the traffic snarls and treacherous roads on their way to ski one of the best large ski areas ever created. And these people get to see the wonders of the Moffat Tunnel Route, one that I personally think among the finest in the world. It remains a part of the Scenic Line of the World.⚒

Colorado Legislature Shows Support For Reviving the Ski Train

Last month, the Colorado State Legislature, in what could be termed a show of support for the growing interest in resuming the Ski Train, put forward a grant to build a platform for service, aimed at resolving Amtrak's objection for direct service to the slopes of Winter Park.

Amtrak? Not that Amtrak?

Yes, that Amtrak, although there has been nothing to indicate that Amtrak has the initiative to begin its service or when. If and when it does, it could be a partnership between Amtrak and the state as in North Carolina, Maine, or California.

Whatever form a revival will take, it probably won't be like the old Ski Train, because the old Ski Train lost money. The new service, if it comes at all, will likely not run all season, and it will likely be a tighter fit for those riding in coach. Will it be better than running the gauntlet that is I-70 in winter? Oh yeah! But I guarantee it will be different (and likely more expensive) than the old way under Ansco. Amtrak and Winter Park are likely to have differing ideas about rail service to Winter Park, especially in terms of dates and times of service. Hopefully, riders will have more options than under the old system, and service will run frequently and fast.

How many years did the Ski Train run both summer and winter? The glory of summer day trips to Winter Park to escape the heat of the city made the summer runs a special treat for residents of the Mile High City. Artwork: SkiTrain.com

In the video above, Walt Loevy gives us a brief show of a Ski Train in its final 2009 season. There is nothing like the unmistakable sound of an EMD F40 whipping by! Watching it, I can't help but remember another Rio Grande train, the Rio Grande Zephyr, with a similarly painted EMD F9 on the point and single level cars whipping by. I think Ansco did that on purpose. ;)

Here's one last video, click for a look at what the coach service was like in summer 2007.⚒

Special POTD: Through the Rockies, Not Around Them

Our Photo of the Day is truly special. Union Pacific is in the midst of a public relations tour de force with it's move of Pomona, California-based RailGiants former Big Boy, now UPP 4014*, but in years past, it was far from a lock as the home of big steam. Nearly every western US class 1 railroad had big steam in the 1940s. A World War and post-war boom stretched a national rail system to its limits and fed the need for big and bigger steam engines to move the freight (and passengers, imagine that!) over the mountain ranges that separate the bread basket of the world from the Pacific coast and her ports. These western railroads were interested in diesels, but knew that they would have to turn to tried-and-true steam technology.

Rio Grande 3619 slows for a moment outside Tabernash, Colorado while it returns from a helper stint to the Moffat Tunnel on October 20, 1956. The 3619 was usually under the care of former-D&SL Joe Priess, engineer and Flory Iacovetto, fireman. The photo appears for the first time online here, making it a special POTD. Click to enlarge.
Photo: Dave Straight. 

While Union Pacific had their 3900 Challenger-class locomotives, Rio Grande had the same type from the same maker and order, called L-97 class, numbered 3800-3805. What UP didn't have was the Denver & Rio Grande Western's L-131 and L-132 classes numbered 3600-3609 and 3610-3619. The last of her class and only days away from her date with the scrappers torch (dear God, why?), this might be one of the last photos of the Rio Grande's largest, most powerful steam engines.◊

* - Union Pacific Passenger reporting mark avoids conflict with UP 4014, an active diesel on their roster, which is the same reason behind UPY. See UtahRails.net data on UP 4014, Note E. It seems no one wants to repeat the confusion over 844/8444/844. 

Moffat Tunnel In September

Skip Weythman posted a quick video of a westbound UP manifest freight at East Portal. Check out the beautiful aspen gold above the tunnel entrance. The trackside shed is missing a little paint and the concrete is showing it's age. Of course, everything ages faster at 9,240 feet ASL!