Western Railroad Discussion > UP OCS on the Moffat Today

I heard a couple of days ago about an OCS from Grand Junction to Fraser, but hearing the power was just some fresh GEs, I didn't peak my interest, but then hearing this morning about them leaving Fraser about 930. I was heading up in that direction for something else. I showed up to Fraser a hair after 9am, and the signal was green for the train to come off the siding, although they still weren't ready to go. All while Amtrak #5 was coming west up the East Slope. With time running out, the dispatcher had the OCS meet #5 at Winter Park. Here are my pictures at Fraser, and Winter Park, including the train entering the Moffat Tunnel from above, hope you all like! 

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3 more, I think that is a new house in the first photo. 

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Great shot at Winter Park entering the Moffat Tunnel.

Great series of photos! Thanks for sharing....

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

what is the structure used for that the last shot of the train going into the tunnel over the 2nd unit used for?

Boy not much snow in Colorado this year is there?  Is the fire risk expected to be high this summer?

Pardon my ignorance, but what do the officers do on those special excursions? What exactly is the purpose, and who are the officers involved?

President and chief executive officer Jim Vena was inspecting the Railroad with other invited guest.

ehour Wrote:
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> Pardon my ignorance, but what do the officers do
> on those special excursions? What exactly is the
> purpose, and who are the officers involved?

Great shots. Really like that first one in the siding at Fraser!

Kevin Morgan
Arvada, CO
ColoradoRailfan.com

Great series!

"I think" I saw Jim Vera taking a photo of Amtrak from the one car that I was almost from at Winter Park, but didn't want to bother him. Nice suit. 

md Wrote:
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>
> Boy not much snow in Colorado this year is
> there?  Is the fire risk expected to be high this
> summer?

The lack of snow in the Colorado mountains this past winter portends very serious water shortages statewide this summer.  Yes, the fire danger could be extreme if Colorado remains dry through the summer.  A note here--the normal summer precipitation peak in most of Colorado east of the Continental Divide and in the northern part of Colorado west of the Continental Divide is in June.  In southern Colorado east and west of the Continental Divide and in a small part of southeastern Colorado, the normal summer precipitation peak is in August from the Southwest Monsoon.  The timing, longevity, and amount of those rains will dictate the severity of the fire season.  What the summer rains are very unlikely to do is to make up the streamflow deficits from the dry winter.  And, before the human-caused climate change pearl-clutchers go crazy claiming all of this is because human-caused climate change, these types of drought cycles have occurred regularly in the Rockies for eons.  The simple geography is that Colorado is a state with a "continental" climate where oceanic moisture sources are a long ways away from it, and where wide variations in annual precipitation are natural and expected.  Severe droughts have occurred in Colorado in the 1890's, 1930's, 1950's, 1970's, 1990's, early 2000's, and as recently as just a few years ago.  In fact, at least part of Colorado is in mild to severe drought somewhere almost every year.  The high Rocky Mountains are basically an island of wetter precipitation in a landscape that is essentially arid to semi-arid for hundreds of miles surrounding them.

WW Wrote:
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> md Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> >
> > Boy not much snow in Colorado this year is
> > there?  Is the fire risk expected to be high
> this
> > summer?
>
> The lack of snow in the Colorado mountains this
> past winter portends very serious water shortages
> statewide this summer.  Yes, the fire danger
> could be extreme if Colorado remains dry through
> the summer.  A note here--the normal summer
> precipitation peak in most of Colorado east of the
> Continental Divide and in the northern part of
> Colorado west of the Continental Divide is in
> June.  In southern Colorado east and west of the
> Continental Divide and in a small part of
> southeastern Colorado, the normal summer
> precipitation peak is in August from the Southwest
> Monsoon.  The timing, longevity, and amount of
> those rains will dictate the severity of the fire
> season.  What the summer rains are very unlikely
> to do is to make up the streamflow deficits from
> the dry winter.  And, before the human-caused
> climate change pearl-clutchers go crazy claiming
> all of this is because human-caused climate
> change, these types of drought cycles have
> occurred regularly in the Rockies for eons.  The
> simple geography is that Colorado is a state with
> a "continental" climate where oceanic moisture
> sources are a long ways away from it, and where
> wide variations in annual precipitation are
> natural and expected.  Severe droughts have
> occurred in Colorado in the 1890's, 1930's,
> 1950's, 1970's, 1990's, early 2000's, and as
> recently as just a few years ago.  In fact, at
> least part of Colorado is in mild to severe
> drought somewhere almost every year.  The high
> Rocky Mountains are basically an island of wetter
> precipitation in a landscape that is essentially
> arid to semi-arid for hundreds of miles
> surrounding them.

Utah has had the same problems with lack of snow, April 1st is usually the peak of snow pack for the Wasatch Mountains.   A few years ago we went up to the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon and Silver Lake was covered in feet of snow - on Mother's Day!  There was a a picture from 3 years ago when we had 200% of normal snow fall versus a picture this year from one of the ski results and the difference is startling and scary.  It's going to be a long hot summer, and the wild fire fighters / smoke jumpers / pilots are going to be busy, I'm sure.

The outlook for Lake Mead and Lake Powell keeps getting worse, makes me wonder what kind of drought it took to make the native tribes leave Mesa Verde and some of the other places around the southwest way back when.

Nathan

atsf121 Wrote:

>
> The outlook for Lake Mead and Lake Powell keeps
> getting worse, makes me wonder what kind of
> drought it took to make the native tribes leave
> Mesa Verde and some of the other places around the
> southwest way back when.
>
> Nathan

The drought that was  occurred around 1300 A.D.  was a long multi-year drought that has been long theorized to have caused the Anasazi to leave Mesa Verde.  However, there is another theory about the Anasazi.  The Anasazi, because of their location at Mesa Verde, used locally sourced sandstone to grind their grains into flour and meal for food.  The flour and meal thus contained considerable powdered sandstone.  That sandstone in their food acted as a strong abrasive on the enamel of their teeth.  This promoted rapid tooth decay to occur in the Anasazi at young ages, which--in the primitive era of few antibiotics--led to widespread serious infection in the Anasazi.  There is evidence that the Anasazi did not mass exodus from Mesa Verde; it could be that their poor dental conditions caused the population to die young enough that the population could not be maintained.  Mesa Verde may have simply declined to the point that the remaining population could not sustain the community and the civilization, so the survivors left and diffused into other tribes and pueblos.   The drought in the 1300's could have just hastened the process.  Off of the subject of trains, but there is no doubt that water is a critical part of the Western ethos.  As historians note, "The history of the West is written in its water." 

Washington state is in a pretty serious drought condition as well. We got a lot of rain this past winter, but not that much snow, meaning not that much snowpack to fill rivers. This type of thing has given us power shortages in the past because so much of our power is hydroelectric.