Western Railroad Discussion > New SD70AH on 5-unit UP Fort Collins Local today

Today's LaSalle, CO - Fort Collins - LaSalle UP Local had five units returning to LaSalle, led by a new SD70AH which brightened up the dingy grey day.

Photo 1 - Next to the old Fort Collins UP depot, now a Brazilian Steak House, as the crew goes to beans.

Photo 2 - Lunch having been consumed, the 5-unit Local led by the shiny newbie leaves the depot restaurant at the UP/GW to BNSF Transfer Track switch.

Photo 3 - Crossing the still-young road bridge on the northeast side of the Centerra shopping area east of Loveland, CO, certainly one of the fanciest railroad bridges around. It was paid for by the developer. The train this direction has to be photographed on an overcast day as if the sun was out we would be looking right into it.

One mooore...

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Photo 4 - UP 8965 with Long's Peak dominating the skyline also at Centerra. No snow at all in the lowlands though I made the mistake of driving into the field and churned up a lot of mud from the previous snowmelt. It is nearly twilight on the Front Range.

Happy anti-cabin fever railfanning! === === = === JLH



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/15 21:46 by highgreengraphics.

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That has to be one of the nicest modern bridges I've seen.

Really great photos.

Ronda Thomas

Is that new bridge the result of the flood of a couple of years ago?
Is that the Big Thompson River?

No, this bridge was installed a couple of years before the floods by the developer/contractor who built the newest portion of the Centerra shopping area, for a secondary road that parallels I-25 about a half-mile to the east. It is high and dry, and the Big Thompson River which flooded crosses under I-25 downhill about 1 1/2 miles south of here. The bridge construction was done the hard way, first relocating the original right-of-way to a shoo-fly temporary embankment around the site, installing the abutments and hanging the bridge, reinstalling the tracks on the original alignment, then removing the shoo-fly tracks and temporary embankment. All that for a lightly-used branch that at the time hosted only the Fort Collins Local 5 days a week, and may now go back to that if and when Great Western/Omnitrax remodels the line from Windsor to Greeley for traffic to Windsor that currently runs via Fort Collins. I have often wondered how much this bridge cost the developer. I also wonder if someday it might say G R E A T W E S T E R N instead of U N I O N P A C I F I C. Centerra is not a mall, but more of an outdoor mall or "lifestyle center", and is three different clusters of shopping areas on both sides of I-25 at the US 34 interchange east of Loveland, CO. === === = === JLH



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/15 15:38 by highgreengraphics.

Really like the photo of the bridge. Have never seen a train on it, but have looked at the different angles. If you caught a train at the right time it could be a calendar photo.

Paul Birkholz
Sheridan, WY

The problem with the bridge is that there is no height around it to clear the trucks behind the girder. If you stand close enough that the stone pillars at the end clear the trucks, you are too close to read the U N I O N P A C I F I C splayed across the bridge. I know now we have drones, but then the problem becomes sun angle, the regular time the Local runs the sun is never correct. Then with height you develop the problem with background. The desired mountain backdrop is made very busy by the very thing that put the bridge there, all the stores and cars. Then shooting from the south side has again the height problem, and for now nothing in the background, but it is a uniformly very dull field. The wild card for a moving train is what vehicle decides to be under the bridge right when you snap the shutter. It is a difficult bridge to shoot, and now with this angle I have shot all 4 sides, both with and without a stepladder. As nice as the bridge looks, you'd think UP would try to put together a nice photo there, it can be done by posing, but would still be challenging. But I can just see a UP 1960's-style Public Relations color brochure with some kind of view of this in it, can't you? And UP used to have some mighty good photographers and an industry-leading PR Department, now it seems more piecemeal... === === = === JLH

Excellent armor yellow five unit consist!! No burn marks anywhere..

David