Western Railroad Discussion > Tennessee Pass, waiting for a train…

 
We are staying in an RV park near this crossing of country road no 4 in Leadville CO.  Walked out in the morning to this spot.  Will TP ever see a train again?  Sure is a beautiful area
 

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Thanks for sharing this scenic area.

BB

Not likely...it's been 25 years since it quit running.
Eddy

kenw Wrote:
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>  
> We are staying in an RV park near this crossing of
> country road no 4 in Leadville CO.  Walked out in
> the morning to this spot.  Will TP ever see a
> train again?  Sure is a beautiful area
>  

Never is a long time but I’m not holding my breath.

Had the opportunity to ride behind UP 844 pulling an NRHS Convention trip from Denver thru Royal Gorge
and then thru Tennessee Pass in 1997.  A fabulous trip for sure..........
 

other companies want in there but UP does not want it bottom line, they  want to be the solo railroad in the west

Shameful governemtn regulators caused this to happen.  The entire D&RGW should have never, ever been allowed to be part of SP.  BNSF should be running here.  At the same time, UP should be running a parallel line up north to compete with BNSF.  The old Milwaukee line comes to mind.....

Remember that it was the D&RGW that bought the SP, and then got swallowed up instead.  Phil Anschutz is now one of the largest stockholders in UP as a result. 

he may have sold a bunch

Somebody told me one day that anshultz owned up if that's the case why wud it be a open stock as n to buy public traded.

Posted from Android

Can you imagine the rumors that you could start just by hitting the crossings with a weed-eater in the middle of the night... :D

Well, Uinta has named their prime contrators for the final design, rail work and tunnels, so a traffic source is but a
few years away.

Out

Those rails look pretty shiny and, in spite of the weeds around the crossing, the right of way isn’t exactly over grown after 25 years. Something must run through there on occasion.

Posted from iPhone

I wonder how many trains a day (24hr Period) was TP was seeing back in Rio Grande and SP days?

CPCoyote Wrote:
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> Those rails look pretty shiny and, in spite of the
> weeds around the crossing, the right of way
> isn’t exactly over grown after 25 years.
> Something must run through there on occasion.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Nothing west of Parkdale except stored cars to just east of Spikebuck since, well pretty much 1997. Up to Parkdale you have bothe the Royal Gorge Tourist trai and Rock & Rail with Rock trains from Quarry at Parkdale.  Ben

jayman Wrote:
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> I wonder how many trains a day (24hr Period) was
> TP was seeing back in Rio Grande and SP days?

I have lived in Canon City since 1997. In spring of 97, before shutdown they ran like street cars on the east end., or so it seemed. 15-20 would be a good guesstimate. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Ben

CPCoyote Wrote:
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> Those rails look pretty shiny and, in spite of the
> weeds around the crossing, the right of way
> isn’t exactly over grown after 25 years.
> Something must run through there on occasion.

Nothing has moved up there since 2001 when UP ran up to retrieve some scrap gons they'd taken up earlier in the year.  Even that run stopped at Malta and didn't make it up to the County Rd 4 crossing, so likely the last trains to go over here were in 1997.  Short summers, cold winters, and the lack of water keep the weeds well under control, along with the slightly toxic slag ballast.

I'd love to see something move over TP, but with a massive amount of surplus capacity on the Moffat, I just can't see any practical reason that anybody would spend the millions to make it operational again.

".....Those rails look pretty shiny and, in spite of the weeds around the crossing, the right of way  isn’t exactly over grown after 25 years. Something must run through there on occasion."

the early morning lighting made it appear shiny...but...on the other side of the crossing the dirt was indented in the flange grooves, maybe someone with a railbike?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/22 17:04 by kenw.

the crossing at malta has 4 inches of asphalt on it, not helping my hy rail dreams

When UP bought it traffic fell like a rock with around 5 trains a day then when 844 made its trip that was it a few days later all traffic was gone except the local was going up around leadville every now an then...