Western Railroad Discussion > Low Denver activity 8-20 to 8-24

My recent trip to see daughters family in Denver was a bust for train activity. They live just north of Mile High Stadium and across I-25 and the river and amusement park from the Joint Line only one half mile away but I would have to walk a mile to get to it, too far for me with some arthritis in the thin dry air. But I did get plenty of  chance to listen to my scanner from their second floor porch or roof. I could hear up the Moffat to past Plains. Eventually I turned off the Limon sub since about half of Denver's rail industry seems to be on that line and it is track warrant territory and several locals are out there. But it seems to me trains heard on other lines were much less than before. The times were were on I-25 there were no loaded or empty coal trains sitting on the Joint Line from where it begins at the north end (name?) to South Denver. Past trips there were always trains there and often one south of the Broadway light rail stop changing crews.

Past trips indicated following train counts, based on other accounts, UP schedules, and radio talk
Moffat Line: Amtrak E & W, UP Freight E&W, BNSF freight E&W, Four loaded & four empty UP coal, about 14 trains a day.
BNSF ex C&S north: two freights each way plus maybe one other type of train each way about six total
Joint Line: four BNSF freights each way, at least six LD and MTY BNSF coal, one BNSF extra N & S (grain, LPG, etc), plus UP coal/mty and one frt each way~26 total.
Brush Sub: One intermodal E&W, one frt E&W, big local E&W, plus the coal/mtys and extras from the Joint Line about & AMTK; about 22 a day.
(several years ago I could verify those counts line thru a detector on that line)
Limon Sub the locals plus most of the coal/mtys on the Moffat, I think the carload freight on that line is tri-weekly.. Total about 10..

What are these approximate train counts now? I didn't think Powder River coal was down that much. Sunday the 23rd could get out a bit, saw part of a CSUX mty in Denver, then another one. then was around Broadway and took twins on lite rail down to mineral and did not see one freight train in two hours. A later short trip showed a freight mostly tanks and Cov hoppers at the north end of Joint Line. at Mineral I could not get off the lite rail in time and didn't know to push button and doors closed so I rode when it switched back and operater changed ends. I said to her, Sorry I couldn't get off in time, she said 'thats OK, I needed the company'. Nice.

There's been a lot of MOW work windows on the BNSF both east and south of Denver for the past couple of months and it will probably continue for another few weeks I heard. A lot of trains are run at night once the windows end. I've heard that oil and coal traffic is down but I also saw a forecast for a very large grain harvest this fall that may keep traffic levels up...

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/15 09:59 by mojaveflyer.

MOW season now, even some texas coal has been going thru kansas to avoid all the work, someone posted here

Yeah, this entire summer has been a MoW workfest on the Joint Line, so not as many trains.