Special POTD: Sadness On a Sunday Morning

As a finishing touch to the featured article on the 3600s, Dave Straight placed his photo "Sadness on a Sunday Morning." I can't look at it without an emotional reaction and I don't trust myself to be reliable in those moments. Yet, to not say anything would seem criminal.

Special Photo of the Day: Dave Straight

At the end of our summer, it's the end of the era of steam, specifically March 25, 1956. My father is not yet 16 years old and his days of driving an ice truck are still ahead of him (let alone parenting me and my three older siblings). Someone older, who would be in his 80s or 90s today, probably looks at the line of used steam engines as dirty, pre-war relics and thinks they look pitiful next to the modern first-generation diesels, all shiny and pristine. Oh, how different a perspective 60 years later!

Today, I still find it incredible that no one gave serious effort to save one of the largest locomotive classes in the world--and certainly in Colorado--off in a corner of a park somewhere in Denver, Pueblo, Grand Junction or Salt Lake City, someplace indebted to the Rio Grande's years of faithful service where such space would have easily been had for the asking. If they had, future generations could have possessed something tangible and real, not a paint scheme or a model, but a life-size representation of the Denver & Rio Grande Western's Main Line Thru the Rockies in an era that is gone forever.◊

Special POTD: Big Boy's Last Sherman Hill September

Just north of the border of Colorado near US-85, about equidistant between the outskirts of Cheyenne and the state line is Speer, Wyoming. Like most railroad places, it's just a spot on the map, a waypoint between here and there. In this case Speer is the junction where the north-south route of the old Denver Pacific connects with the main east-west Union Pacific Overland Route over Sherman Hill. This past week, 56 years ago, a Union Pacific Big Boy rolled westbound from Speer toward Sherman Hill with its manifest freight, and Dave Straight was there to photograph it.

Photo of the Day: Dave Straight, contributing photographer to Colorado Railroads

Another September would never come for most of the Big Boys to haul freight. Just 10 months and 2 weeks to the day after this photo was taken, the same 4015 would make the last revenue run for any Big Boy over these same rails before being retired and eventually scrapped. Only 8 Big Boys were spared, including 4005 sitting at Forney in Denver and the celebrated 4014 undergoing restoration (as this is written) in Cheyenne, just a cinder's glide from where this was taken.

Special thanks to Dave Straight (and John Hill) for sharing this finely aged photograph with us.◊

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.