Old Postings

If you are looking for my non-railroad topics, you can find them on my new blog.

The Denver Zephyr

The Denver Zephyr was the Burlington’s top Chicago to Denver train. It was the main competition to the C&NW / UP City of Denver. It’s overall schedule was almost identical in 1950 as shown below. It traveled the route at an average speed of 63 mph.
Station	Leave	Total Miles	Miles	Minutes	Avg Speed
Chicago	5:00 PM
Galesburg, IL	7:07 PM	162	162	127	77
Burlington, IA	7:51 PM	206	44	44	60
Ottumwa, IA	8:56 PM	280	74	65	68
Creston, IA	10:42 PM	393	113	106	64
Council Bluffs, IA	12:08 AM	492	99	86	69
Omaha, NE	12:30 AM	496	4	22	11
Lincoln, NE	1:45 AM	551	55	75	44
Hastings, NE	3:23 AM	648	97	98	59
Holdrege, NE	4:12 AM	702	54	49	66
McCook, NE	5:32 AM	779	77	82	56
Akron, CO	6:40 AM	922	143	128	67
Fort Morgan, CO	7:13 AM	956	34	33	62
Denver, CO	8:30 AM	1034	78	77	61
Today, Amtrak’s California Zephyr is the only train to run between Chicago and Denver. Its schedule is shown below. It is a bit slower but not all that much – at least when it is on time. It travels the route at an average speed of 56 mph. Not all Amtrak stops are included. They stop at more places than the Denver Zephyr did. They also eliminated a couple of stops.
Station	Leave	Total Miles	Miles	Minutes	Avg Speed
Chicago	1:50 PM
Galesburg, IL	4:28 PM	162	162	158	62
Burlington, IA	5:15 PM	206	44	47	56
Ottumwa, IA	6:43 PM	280	74	88	50
Creston, IA	8:31 PM	393	113	108	63
Omaha, NE	10:19 PM	496	103	108	57
Lincoln, NE	12:18 AM	551	55	119	28
Hastings, NE	1:57 AM	648	97	99	59
Holdrege, NE	2:44 AM	702	54	47	69
McCook, NE	3:53 AM	779	77	69	67
Fort Morgan, CO	5:15 AM	956	177	138	77
Denver, CO	7:30 AM	1034	78	135	35

C&NW Passenger Trains

Unfortunately, I think, a lot of the most interesting railroads have been merged out of existence into a handful of mega railroads. For instance, the current Union Pacific Railroad consists of the old original Union Pacific plus Chicago and North Western, Missouri Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, Western Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Denver and Rio Grande Western. These railroads include numerous other railroads as well.
My original and current favorite is the Chicago and North Western. It’s because I grew up near the C&NW mainline in the Chicago area and it has a rich history of passenger trains. I also worked for them for a couple of years in the early 1980’s.
The C&NW has a long history that goes back more than 150 years. When it was absorbed into Union Pacific in 1995, it was one of the oldest companies in the United States. How many companies can you think of that still exist that are over 150 years old an still operate with the same name as 150 years ago?
The C&NW line that went west out to Omaha, Nebraska was the host of many famous passenger trains that originated in Chicago including the “City” trains that were operated in conjunction with Union Pacific: City of Los Angeles, City of San Francisco, City of Portland, City of Denver. There were also trains like the Pacific Limited (Chicago to LA), San Francisco Challenger, San Francisco Overland Limited, Los Angeles Challenger, Los Angeles Overland Limited, The Columbine (to Denver), The Portland Rose, The Forty Niner (to San Francisco). They also had trains that went north and northwest to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Trains like The 400, The Viking, The Victory, and the North Western Limited. These were the "big" and famous trains on the C&NW. There were lots of other trains that had names and many that had only numbers.
Not a single one of these trains made it to the Amtrak era. And, I never saw a single one of the big named trains other than in pictures.
So I have a model of one of them using Walthers’ passenger cars and Proto 2000 E6, E7 and E8 locomotives.
In February of 1950, the westbound City of Denver, train 111, had the schedule shown below. The train was turned over to Union Pacific in Omaha. The train had an overall average speed of 64 mph for the 1048 mile run from Chicago to Denver. This was one of the faster Chicago to Denver trains in 1950.
Station	Leave	Total Miles	Miles	Minutes	Avg Speed
Chicago	5:00 PM
Sterling, IL	6:37 PM	110	110	97	68
Clinton, IA	7:04 PM	138	28	27	62
Cedar Rapids, IA	8:15 PM	219	81	71	68
Marshalltown, IA	9:18 PM	289	70	63	67
Ames, IA	9:51 PM	327	38	33	69
Boone, IA	10:10 PM	340	13	19	41
Council Bluffs, IA	12:17 AM	485	145	127	69
Omaha, NE	12:30 AM	488	3	13	14
Columbus, NE	1:55 AM	570	82	85	58
Grand Island, NE	2:50 AM	632	62	55	68
Kearney, NE	3:28 AM	674	42	38	66
North Platte, NE	4:47 AM	769	95	79	72
Julesburg, CO	5:00 AM	851	82	73	67
Sterling, CO	5:55 AM	908	57	55	62
La Salle, CO	7:20 AM	1001	93	85	66
Denver, CO	8:30 AM	1048	47	70	40

Railfanning August 27, 2006

Spent a good part of today railfanning the Moffat subdivision of the Union Pacific. Here is a picture of Amtrak’s California Zephyr running at least 2 hours late. This photo was taken at Crescent, one of the sidings that the trains encounter on their way up to the Moffat Tunnel. The equipment on this train has seen better days. Some corrosion and flaking paint. I hope they are in better condition inside.



There were some nice freights up there too such as this coal train also at Crescent.




I saw several of these coal trains. Most were empties but one was loaded.

Up at the Moffat Tunnel, it was 50 degrees compared to 73 back down in Denver. I walked a little ways up the trail that begins here and ends up at Arapaho Lakes about 7 miles away. I just went around to the backside of the tunnel portal to see what I could see. While I was there, the tunnel’s ventilation fan was operating. It’s quite noisy and runs 20 minutes or so until the tunnel is ventilated. They do this after each train runs through in order to avoid breathing problems for the railroad personnel. The Moffat Tunnel is about 6 miles long and comes out at Winter Park on the other side of the Continental Divide. No train came through the tunnel while I was there.

I drove up the old Rollins Pass road about a half mile. The road is in as bad of shape as ever. Lots of pot holes and rocks. Nice view of the railroad leading to the tunnel though. This road was the railroad itself before the tunnel was completed in 1927. You can read my story of cycling up Rollins pass if you'd like.

Along the Joint Line 1

Here is a set of locomotives that are often seen south of Denver doing switching duties at various industries. It's an interesting set because the three are quite different looking with three different heritages. This photo was taken on August 23, 2006.


The Rio Grande engine is a GP40-2 with 3000 horsepower. It has been renumbered via a patch to Union Pacific 1348. It used to have Rio Grande number 3126 and was built in 1974.

The Cotton Belt engine has also been patched by Union Pacific to number 1526. This engine was originally built as a GP40 in 1967. It had a series of owners and numbers beginning with Louisville and Nashville 3024, then Seaboard 6820, then CSX 6820. Then Cotton Belt got it and numbered it 7291. It was rebuilt in 1991 into what the railroad calls a GP40-2M. It has 3000 horsepower.

The Union Pacific 1924 engine is a GP60 that was built in 1988 as Cotton Belt 9622. It used to look a lot like the Cotton Belt engine in the photo. It spent about a year as Union Pacific 5724 before getting the number shown here. GP60's have 3800 horsepower.

Where Were Those Trains Going?

I remember vividly right after going to bed hearing the sound of trains going through Lombard. Our house was about 4 blocks from the tracks where there were frequent trains. There was always a train going by when I was too far away to see what sort of train it was. They did not often blow their horns through Lombard and the other western suburbs. Lombard was a bedroom community and people were aware of the need to be cautious by these high speed tracks. But especially late at night, you could hear the trains anyway. It was the sound of the diesel locomotives and the sound of the train’s wheels hitting the joints in the still-jointed tracks. I could tell if it was just another commuter train heading out to West Chicago or Geneva or towards Chicago. The sound of the F7’s and E8’s were distinctive and recognizable because of the sound of their acceleration away from the Lombard station. Freight trains were different because they made a steady sound with little or no acceleration. They might have had their terminus as close as Proviso Yard about 10 miles east or they might have gone all the way into Chicago. They also could have gone to any number of far away points west but most often to Omaha where the train would be turned over to the Union Pacific to go even farther west – even as far as California.

Railroad Interest - Part 2

I grew up in Lombard, Illinois. Lombard had three railroads running through it at one time. The only one that still exists today is the Union Pacific line that runs between Chicago and Omaha and points farther west. This was part of the original transcontinental railroad and was known as the Chicago and North Western when I was growing up. It was absorbed into the Union Pacific in 1995.

Lombard also had a single track line usually know as the Great Western or, more formally, the Chicago Great Western. This line ran from Chicago out into Iowa and is now a bike trail through Lombard. It was merged into the Chicago and North Western in 1968 and gradually abandoned over the next decade or so.

There was an interurban railroad that ran through Lombard. The Chicago, Aurora and Elgin. We called it the "Roarin Elgin". This was an electric line that ran between its namesake cities. It ceased operating in 1957 and in the 60’s was converted into a trail called the Illinois Prairie Path. Great for hiking and biking.

All three of these lines were fascinating for me to poke around. I never saw a train on the CA&E but did see some on the CGW after it was merged into the C&NW. Trains on that line were rare. The C&NW, of course, had lots of trains including commuter trains and freight. I used to ride my bicycle up along the C&NW after school to watch a train or two and the first of the evening rush hour commuter trains. I liked the Elizabeth Street crossing because you could see the farthest at this point where the track curved slightly. From here you could see well past Grace Street to the east and a good ways into Glen Ellyn to the west.

The Prairie Path was fun to ride my bicycle on as well since over in the next two suburbs west, Glen Ellyn and Wheaton, it was adjacent to the C&NW tracks. So I could ride over there and see some trains on the C&NW as well.

I used to notice railroad artifacts along these lines. One of the interesting items on the CA&E is the remains of an old station in Glen Ellyn just east of Hill Avenue. As of about 2003, it was still there. It was much more overgrown that it was 20 years earlier. It consists of some brickwork that must have formed an arch over the entry to the station. That’s it. You could also find the remains of station platforms at various places through Lombard.

One of the unusual things about the C&NW line is the lack of lighted signals. Instead, they have signals in the cabs of the locomotives which receive their indications through low voltage current in the track. But it wasn’t always this way. Over in Elmhurst, you can see signal bridges still in place. Years ago, I noticed concrete supports along the right of way just west of Lombard. These had to be for signals that were there at one time, long ago.

The C&NW track through Lombard is where I found some date nails. These were nails with the number 57 on top representing 1957. The pole line on the south side of the tracks was put up by Western Union. The poles had date nails in them as well - 42 for 1942.

My Interest in Railroads - Part 1

I have long been interested in many aspects of railroads and railroading. What is it that I like about them and why? The origins of my interest in railroads goes back to when I was a kid. It must have been about 1964 or so when I was about 7 years old when I got a Lionel trainset for Christmas. It ran in a figure 8 with a single steam locomotive and a set of freight cars. I still have one of the cars – a Sunoco tank car. I don’t know the origin of this trainset but I believe the set was used since the cars were not particularly pristine or even fully functional. I liked it anyway.

A few years later, I found a report that my brother had done for school about railroads. I found this fascinating because everything my older brother did was fascinating by definition. I had to do a lot of things that he did and I was interested in many of the things that he was interested in because, well, he was cool – simple as that. He was (and still is) 12 years older than me. To prepare this report, he acquired numerous booklets and other information directly from the railroads. So, I had to do that as well. I wrote to the railroads, and there were lots of them back then, and asked them for whatever information they could send me. They sent some of the same booklets published by the Association of American Railroads as well as timetables, photographs, and posters - all for free. I still have a lot of this material that dates back to the late 60's.

These are some of the things that sparked my interest in railroads.

Mischief Along the Railroad

My interest in railroads began sometime in the 60’s. Where that interest comes from will be the subject of another posting. Sometime in about 1970 when I was 13, there were three of us (Randy, Leif and I) who rode our bikes up to the Chicago and North Western triple track mainline in Lombard, Illinois – about 5 or 6 blocks from where we lived. It was late in the day during the week so there were numerous lengthy commuter trains bringing workers home from Chicago to the suburbs. This did not deter us from walking right down the tracks while leaving our bikes at the station.

After walking about a quarter of a mile, one of us found a fusee - a railroad flare - lying on the ballast along one of the three tracks. Why it was there, we didn’t know. What it was for, we didn’t know. It had never been used.

Well, it hadn't been used until we lit the thing. Now, these things burn very hot and we found an empty soda can nearby and found that it could burn a hole in it quite easily. It was entertaining for a while but we left it behind to finish burning while we continued walking on down the tracks.

A little while later, here comes a man walking down the tracks towards us. When he gets close to us, he whips out his badge and identifies himself as a policeman with the C&NW police department. He said that he drove all the way from Chicago to find out what we were up to. He explained to us what fusees were for – emergencies that require trains to stop when sighted. He took our names down and gave us some well deserved scolding about the dangers of hanging out on railroad tracks – especially ones where trains go as fast as they sometimes did in Lombard. He also cautioned us about putting stuff on the tracks saying that even a penny can cause problems. He then told us that if we wanted to watch trains, which is what we were really interested in doing, that we should do it from the station platform or off railroad property. He realized that we were just kids who did not realize the meaning of the fusee and let us go on own way. He did tell us that he didn’t want to see our names come across his desk again.

Not feeling particularly guilty about all of this, we went back to the station and waited for another train or two. The train that went all the way to Clinton, Iowa on the center track came through a lot slower than usual that evening.

Then we went home and that is when we found out that the railroad cop had called our parents.

In 1980, when I actually went to work for the same railroad, the subject did not come up.

Acequia, Colorado

An acequia is a community operated waterway used in the American Southwest for irrigation. Acequias are usually historically engineered canals that carry snow runoff or river water to distant fields.

There is a location along the nearby railroad joint line that is called Acequia. It is just southwest of Highlands Ranch, Colorado. At one time on both railroad lines, there were sidings at this location. I have heard railroad personnel refer to this location occasionally as Acequia. Here is the location on a topographic map. Acequia is clarly marked and you can see both railroad lines on the map. If you zoom in enough, you can see that both railroads had sidings. The western track, currently owned by Union Pacific, was originally built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western. The eastern track, currently owned by Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, was originally built by a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

Also on the map, you can see that near Acequia, the Highline Canal runs between the two tracks and then turns to the west and the one track goes over the canal. Railroads often named places after some geographical feature. In this case the canal. The canal was built through here about 1880. The Rio Grande track was built in 1871. The other track, built by a subsidiary of the Santa Fe Railway was built in 1887.

I rode my bike to near this location this evening. It's a ride of about 5 miles from home if I go the long way. I followed the Highline Canal trail all the way to a place where the canal trail is no longer rideable because of the presence of evil weeds that contain a plethora of "goat heads" (which I will write about in another posting). About 1/4 mile south of where I stopped is the actual location of Acequia. Then a little ways farther south, the canal turns under the track as stated above and then it heads through a tunnel under a ridge and under Plum Creek. That’s why the trail is really broken at this point. See this satellite photo.

One of the cool things about the ride tonight was the presence of three large full-racked elk that were hanging around. They were quite wary of me being there and moved off into the nearby woods as I rode by. I was never closer than about 150 yards.

Date Nails

One day in about 1975 my father and I were walking along the Ann Arbor Railroad in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We were looking for discarded insulators when my father noticed a nail in one of the railroad ties with a number on top of it. We soon noticed that these nails were in many of the ties and we were able to pull out a few using just our fingers. A new hobby was born!

In the next several years, I spent a lot of time walking various railroad tracks in numerous states looking for and pulling these nails. Besides Michigan, I looked for date nails in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin, Colorado and Ontario. I pulled hundreds of nails from these railroads (and maybe others):

Chicago and North Western
Grand Trunk Western
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific (The Milwaukee Road)
New York Central
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis (Big 4 Route)
Michigan Central
Ann Arbor
Wabash
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
Elgin, Joliet, and Eastern
Chicago and Illinois Midland
Illinois Central
Great Western Railroad
Canadian National
Erie
Chicago, South Shore and South Bend
St. Louis and Southwestern (Cotton Belt)
Southern Pacific
Texas Pacific
Detriot, Toledo, and Ironton
Detroit and Toledo Shoreline
Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh
New York, Chicago and St. Louis (Nickel Plate Road)

I had joined the Texas Date Nail Collector’s Association back then so I had many contacts with other collectors. I participated in trading nails with these other collectors and accumulated nails from many other railroads by trading extras that I had collected myself. The nails from the Grand Trunk Western were the easiest to trade for some reason.

The oldest nail I ever found still in the track was a "6" representing 1906. The second oldest was a "13" on the same line not far from where I found the "6". Both from a Big Four branch line in Michigan.

I haven’t collected date nails for many years but I still have the collection. You can read all about date nails on this page and you can find some photos of part of my collection here.

Insulators

One of the offshoots of my interest in railroads is a past interest in collecting insulators. You know, those glass or porcelain thingamabobs on telephone poles. There are lots of people who collect these and there are even insulator shows from time to time. I went to one in Houston one time and it was very interesting seeing some of the rarer insulators on display.

I got interested in these things sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s when I found some lying around somewhere – probably along the railroad tracks. My father and I embarked on a number of mostly unsuccessful insulator hunts. Most of the ones we saw were still in use and it would have been difficult and illegal to collect those. We thought any discarded insulators along the way were fair game, though.

There were several good finds that we had. I remember one time, my father somehow got word that the Chicago and North Western Railway had taken down some poles and left the insulators lying at the base of the poles. This was somewhere out west of Sterling, Illinois. We made a trip out there and collected about 100 insulators most of which I no longer have. I kept only the better ones that were not chipped or were unusual in some way. I recall that a lot of them had a spiral groove to hold the wire. And some of these had the name HEMINGRAY with a backwards E.

Another of our collecting successes was along the Chicago Great Western Railway. This particular part of that railroad was abandoned in the early 70’s and the wires on the poles along the right-of-way were cut at intersections. So, we were confident that there was no electricity in them. But how to get the insulators off the pole without lugging a ladder around? We created a 10 or 12 foot pole with a loop of rubber insulated wire on the end. The wire was slipped over the insulator and then twisted tight on the glass and then turned. We were able to slowly unscrew and remove the insulator in this way. There were some neat porcelain insulators along this line that looked hand made. Still have them.

Eventually I lost interest in collecting these since they were taking up so much room and they were getting harder to find. I still looked for them in every antique shop I went in and occasionally would find an interesting one. I have acquired several purple ones this way.

When I moved to Texas, I was driving around with my wife one day and spotted a bunch of poles with insulators lying along the Santa Fe railway northeast of Dallas. Couldn’t resist grabbing a few. We went back there and hiked here and there along the line picking up a few select others as well. This line runs from Dallas to Paris, Texas. This kindled a renewed interest in collecting these for a while but it faded again.

I have some of the better insulators on display on my display shelves in my model train room.

Waterton Canyon

Waterton Canyon was carved by the South Platte River southwest of Denver. The mouth of the canyon is at the far south end of Wadsworth Blvd. several miles south of C470 near the Lockheed Martin facilities. Some information about Waterton Canyon is readily available on the internet. You can read about it being the beginning of the Colorado Trail, how you can do some good mountain biking once you reach the Strontia Springs Dam, how the road is closed to automobiles, how the big dam at Strontia Springs is owned by the Denver Water Board, etc. These things are easy to see for anyone who visits the canyon.

Here are some lesser known facts about Waterton Canyon:

1. The start of the canyon is at a location known as Kassler. This was a water treatment facility built in 1889. The facility is not used for water treatment anymore but there are still some active buildings there.

2. The Highline Canal has its start about a mile and a half up the canyon. Once you get up there a ways, you can see a concrete wall on the other side of the river. This is actually the wall of the canal. The canal’s water is diverted through a tunnel upstream a bit further. You can see where the water exits the tunnel at the location where two large pipes cross the road. This canal is about 70 miles long and it ends up near the Denver airport. The canal was built between 1879 and 1883.

3. Those two large pipes are diversions of their own. One of them feeds into Marston Lake in Littleton. Where the other one goes, I don’t know.

4. A little ways before the pipes cross the road, you might notice what appear to be bridge abutments parallel to the road on the side opposite the river. These concrete abutments supported yet another large pipeline once upon a time. You can see pictures of them at the Denver Public libraries historic photo website.

5. The road up Waterton Canyon is on the old railroad grade of the Colorado and Southern. It was built originally as the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railway. The railroad eventually made it all the way to Gunnison via Buena Vista and the Alpine Tunnel. It was built through Waterton about 1878 and taken up from the canyon by about 1940.

6. There was a large hotel at Strontia Springs at one time. No evidence of it now. The big concrete dam is called the Strontia Springs Dam.

7. Strontia Springs was formerly called Deansbury.

8. Cell phones don't work in the canyon.

Favorite Railfanning Spots

I live in Colorado near Denver and there are a few good railfanning spots that I especially like. The first is in the Palmer Lake area and the other is in Coal Creek Canyon at Crescent.

Palmer Lake is where the north-south BNSF-UP Joint Line goes from two separate tracks into a single track. This happens just north of the lake in Palmer Lake. It’s a good place for several reasons. There is good parking right there at this park location. You can walk completely around the lake and up and down the tracks in a park trail without trespassing on the railroad right of way. Along this path are numerous good photo vantage points. Second. This location is the top of the hill that goes from Denver all the way south to this location. Southbound coal trains are moving really slow at this point are quite loud as they strain to overcome the hill. BNSF trains often stop about a mile north in “the sag” to cool off before making the final climb. It’s also neat to hear the loud train horns echoing off the nearby foothills.

The other location is in Crescent. This location is on Union Pacific’s (ex Rio Grande) track that heads west of Denver into the tunnel district. Crescent is at a road crossing between tunnels 18 and 19 and is another neat place to photograph some trains from a higher vantage point.

A third place is much closer to home in Highlands Ranch. The same Joint Line I mentioned above has its two tracks close together just about a mile away. There is a nice bike trail practically along the tracks along the Highline Canal and on top of Chatfield Dam from which you can see trains. I have seen many while on my bike rides over there but haven’t done much photography from there.

"cajrrman"

Once upon a time, my personal email address was cajrailfan. That's my initials followed by my hobby. However, eventually, I got so many spams at that address that I ended up abandoning it. You can still find some stuff on Google Web and Google Groups with that id in the search key. I ended up changing it to cajrrman. My initials, followed by "rr" for railroad, followed by "man" for man. That's been my mark of presence on the internet ever since.

I created a website using this id and you can find my other much older web page here. I haven't updated it lately and a few things are definitely out of date. But you can still find a collection of some of my railroad photographs that I have taken over the years. That page has had over 30,000 hits. I'll do an update to it sometime this summer once it stops raining and I can get out and take a few good railroad photos at one of my favorite spots.