Western Railroad Discussion > Chasing down drgw 5401 a trip report on ex colorado drg

Seeing that drgw tunnel motor was reported at Crater I decided to go and try to find it. The quick trip to find one of the last unpatched drgw tunnel motors turned into a day a great railfanning. I guess I should post this in the trip reports section but I don't really use it so I'm posting it hear.

There will be quite a few pics and this will probably take some time to open all of them for dial-up users but I'm posting all of this on a dial-up connection so I feel your pain.

The first pic shows two coal trains passing eachother at bond a crewchange point. Thats the colorado river. The rear DPU's are seen pushing a loaded coal train east as an empty waits to head up the craig branch. The westbound throttles up after the eastbound is gone and heads up the old moffat road.

Thanks Tyler...
for all those nice pics. I looked at 'em all. They told an interesting story. Glad you got what you were after that day.
Two friends & I spent about 3 hours last July by that Tunnel that you mentioned near Bond, but everything in sight was stopped & not moving.
That's the way it goes sometimes.
Tom

Hey, I am glad you caught it! It finally showed at Phippsburg this morning, now it shows at Oak Ridge, CO, is supposed to arrive Phippsburg 2:22 pm. Is Oak Ridge a coal mine location? It would sure be nice to know if 5401 is on the point of something. Does anybody know anybody to ask who works up there? Anyway, thanks for the great pix, and I am glad you had lots of luck. JLH

Nice catch Tyler! It definately makes me want to get up to p-burg.

Nick

I know about Oak Creek, it is the next town west of Phippsburg. But I definitely read "Oak Ridge". The times given of the turn out of Phippsburg suggested a location a lot farther away than Oak Creek, but not as far away as the Axial Mine, and It traced at Steamboat Springs earlier, so I am supposing it is west of there. I did see the local train parked there at the fine overview of Phippsburg in the photos here, so I wondered if it would be put on that. It would be interesting to know if 5401 will be assigned to this outpost for a while, does anybody know anybody to ask? - - - - - JLH

eatontm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oak Creek is a small town west of Phippsburg.
> There use to me a mine named edna but it was mined
> out and is now closed. Supposedly the 5401 is
> assigned to the P-burg local. So there must be
> something in oak creek that gets train service.
> -Tyler


No its not assigned to the Local. The Local uses AC's because it swaps out the Craig Shuttle Power that loads everynight.

The 5401 was sent to Pburg to work on a ballast train dumping on the Energy Industrial Lead due to a bad order unit. It was not the leader out of Phippsburg.


Thanks for sharing the pictures. Too bad you can't get a picture at Volcano :)

Where do these loaded coal trains originate? And what are their destinations?

IIRC, TRAINS had an article in 1996/1997 on the DRGW hauling coal through Oak Creek/Phippsburg. A pretty good reference with a nice map and photos, and I was able to take a few pictures from the same spots (Toponas, e.g.,) as the article's photographer. Look for the Devil's Thumb near the R-O-W.

Jim

I don't know where I got "Devil's Thumb" from - although there *is* a Devil's Thumb somewhere in Colorado. Finger Rock is the name of the stone pillar just a bit north of Toponas.

Jim