Western Railroad Discussion > A few from Canon City Co today. Was a good day too! (4 shots)

Well today was one of the better days along the old DRGW Tenn Pass Line on the east end at least. 3 trains total. 2 off the Rock & Rail and the Royal Gorge Express.

Shot 1. The day started for me around 0530 as I just couldn't sleep (who knows why, just couldn't) Knowing of 2 Rock Trains running today I figured it would be a good one. The first of the day was this one here. UP SD70ACe 8780 & 8522 have the daily Rock Train EB at around 0710 or so. Been wanting to get a shot here for some time now, thought it would be a good one. Think it turned out ok. This is at the MacKenzie Ave crossing east of Canon City. Train was doing all of the speed limit here, 40mph. Had 48 cars which is the usual car count.

Shot 2.  After heading up to the load spot at Parkdale at the west end of the Royal Gorge to check and see if the BNSF Ballast Train did indeed get up there. It did, so then it was just a matter of waiting. They would not head east from Parkdale til after the first RGX train went west and then back east, which went west at 0930. Interesting units on today's train. The new SD40-2 601 in still shiny/fresh paint was paired with the F7B, 1503. All the other units on the RGX are OOS at the shop in town. But here, on the advertised departure from the station at 0930 we find 601 & 1503 crawling along. They throttled up about the time the 1503 passed by me. Not to many roads can boast an SD40-2/F7B set of units, both on line and in service.

Shot 3.   This is the other rock train that ran today. A BNSF Ballast Train with BNSF ES44C4 7192 leading 53 HERZOG Cars with BNSF 8002 and KCS 4198 on rear. This is on the south side of the Arkansas River off of River Street at it's west end. There is a gate at the roads end which one of the raft companies leases from one of the property owners back here. The gent who owns the land just outside said gate, came home and I chatted with him about backing up to the gate that keeps people out of the Private Property. Asked if he any issues with me parking and getting a shot of the trains as the came east from the bed of my truck. He not only said, Sure, No problem. He actually showed me a spot where he and his family have a small picnic ground set up behind another fence and said Have at it. So, this is the resulting shot. BNSF 7192 heads east at the west end of Canon City at what's known as Tunnel Drive.(If ya look about halfway up the cliffs you can see one of three tunnels. They kinda slowed it down abit here as the RGX had just passed not more than 5 minutes before they came by here. They waited a few while at a crawl for RGX to get into station and made sure they could come by. Got the OK as the RGX kept all passengers on board as they went past.

One more to come...   B

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Last one of the shots. Here, BNSF 7192 has a roll on it as they cross Highland Ave on Canon City's east side. The bridge in shot, crosses 4 Mile Creek and directly west of the bridge is Grandview Ave, which is also a great spot in the correct lighting to get shots at.  All in all a great morning. My better half, msns2557 wasn't feeling to great this morning and didn't accompany me to get these shots. She'll get another chance tho. Waiting for the fall colors to start showing and then we'll get some more good ones.  The Mountain in the distance is known as South Twin Mtn, btw. Elevation is 7857Ft.

Thanks all for looking. Stay safe, be well. Ben



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/21 14:54 by ns2557.

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Very NICE series!

Larry

Great stuff!  Thanks for posting it!

Great shots!  How many round trips does the Royal Gorge train making per day? 

BeaumontHill Wrote:
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> Great shots!  How many round trips does the Royal
> Gorge train making per day? 

Currently, 4 trips. 0930, 1230, 1530. 1830. Rock & Rail usually has 1 train each way per day. Ben

Great shots!

Good selection, thanks for the show.  #3 and 4 are stunning

ns2557 Wrote:
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> BeaumontHill Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Great shots!  How many round trips does the
> Royal
> > Gorge train making per day? 
>
> Currently, 4 trips. 0930, 1230, 1530. 1830. Rock &
> Rail usually has 1 train each way per day. Ben

Thank you very much!

Great set of photos and narrative Ben! That last shot is fantastic! What a busy line that still is, who needs the west end, lol...

JG

Nice bunch.
JB

All very nice!

Awesome!

Nice work Ben, very nice scenery.
Gonut

Thanks for sharing these Ben.  That second one is wild.  I look forward to getting back down there in the next couple of weeks.

Jim Barton