Cool Chromes -- Colorado 1985

Amtrak; Denver, Colo.; May 1985

Ask any well-traveled rail photographer to list their top five states for shooting, and the odds are pretty good that Colorado will appear on that list. With the spectacular Front Range of the Rockies just outside Denver, a busy multi-railroad line heading down to Pueblo and some of the best tourist railroads in the land, Colorado has quite the variety. My first visit to Colorado was in 1982 to attend the convention of the National Railway Historical Society. I didn't have a car for that trip, so non-convention photos are rare. But I returned in 1985 to ride a trip behind Union Pacific's Challenger No. 3985 (we did a post on that earlier) and again in 1988 to attend the 50th Anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club. We'll concentrate this post on the middle trip, starting in Denver Union Station in 1985 (above).

Next, we're following Amtrak's westbound California Zephyr into the Front Range. It is about to enter the first of over two dozen tunnels on its climb up the Rockies, which will ultimately top out inside Moffatt Tunnel.

Amtrak; Tunnel 1, Plainview, Colo.; May 1985

Next, we'll follow Union Pacific north out of Denver towards Cheyenne, Wyo. We see a northbound rail train passing the Monfort meat packing plant.

Union Pacific; Greeley, Colo.; May 1985

Back at Union Station in Denver, we find the eastbound California Zephyr pausing just after sunset. The descent down the Rockies was made as twilight consumed the plains and the lights of Denver started flickering on in the distance. The Denver & Rio Grande Western, the host railroad for the Zephyr on this leg of the trip, added a freight locomotive for braking down the grade from Moffatt.

Amtrak/Denver & Rio Grande Western; Union Station, Denver, Colo.; May 1985

Heading south from Denver, we are on the Joint Line to Pueblo. The Joint Line is so named because trains from the Rio Grande, Burlington Northern and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe all used the tracks at this time. A northbound Rio Grande freight was spotted along the shores of Palmer Lake.

Denver & Rio Grande Western; Palmer Lake, Colo.; May 1985

Still on the Joint Line, we see a southbound train at Castle Rock behind a trio of the Rio Grande's way cool SD50 locomotives. The Joint Line was built as two different parallel railroads (Rio Grande and Santa Fe), but consolidation led to the railroads sharing the tracks with Rio Grande's line being used for northbound trains and the Santa Fe's for southbounds. This southbound Rio Grande train was actually running on the northbound track, which lined it up quite nicely with Castle Rock.

Denver & Rio Grande Western; Castle Rock, Colo.; May 1985

The Rio Grande had some interesting names along its route. West of Moffatt Tunnel was one of my favorites. We finish our visit to Colorado in 1985 with a stop at Troublesome.

Denver & Rio Grande Western; Troublesome, Colo.; May 1985

Cool Chromes -- The Coolest Diesels Ever

Cool Chromes is a recurring feature where we look at slides that have passed through the scanner.

Burlington Northern; Bragdon, Colo.; May 1985

There have been a lot of cool diesels throughout the years and a lot of cool paint schemes. I'm too young to have seen the heyday of cab units and most other "first generation" diesel power. The second generation of diesels was well underway by the time I started noticing what was around me. Of the diesels I've seen a lot of, however, there was never a better paint-and-locomotive combination than Burlington Northern's Cascade Green on its General Electric C30-7 diesels.

My first encounter with these beasts came in Colorado in 1985. I was making my second trip to the state, and this was the first with my own set of wheels (in 1982 I had been to Colorado as part of the NRHS Convention and didn't venture out on my own). Friend Frank Garon and I had gone to Colorado to ride a fan trip behind Union Pacific's No. 3985, the recently restored Challenger, and as part of the trip had spent a day on the "Joint Line" (Santa Fe and Rio Grande shared the line) between Denver and Pueblo. As the day wound down and we approached Pueblo, we stopped at the railroad junction of Bragdon awaiting sunset. On the horizon I could see a cloud of smoke, and it was moving. Eventually this cloud of smoke lifted off the horizon with six diesels working hard on the grade out of Pueblo beneath it. Four of the BN C30-7s led the train (trailed by an EMD diesel and a GE from the Santa Fe) and put on quite the show. I was hooked on these engines.

Jump forward nine years and I made my first (and so far only) visit to the Powder River Basin, the vast coal region in Wyoming. Both BN and Chicago & North Western (now Union Pacific) served the basin, with brand new GE's holding down duties on the C&NW and mostly SD40-2s from EMD leading BN's trains. A handful of BN's trains, however, had my old friends -- the C30-7s -- leading. These were by far and away my favorite Powder River trains.

Burlington Northern; Antelope, Wyo.; September 1994

I don't think any of the C30-7s got painted into the merger colors of BNSF after the BN and Santa Fe merged. I have encountered a few on regional railroads, including in Michigan. But the most recent time I have seen these great engines was in 2005 in the unlikely place of the northern Maine woods. A trio of them -- still in Cascade Green -- were leading a train on the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic past the section house at Bodfish. They still looked and sounded good. Roll on!

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic; Bodfish, Maine; July 21, 2005