Nostalgia & History > Farewell, DRGW GP40 3071

Denver & Rio Grande Western GP40 3071 was likely moving to Omnitrax at Loveland, CO, when spotted January 7, 1996 at BNSF's Denver Locomotive Shop. Her days handling coal trains and fighting the Colorado Rockies tough grades were over. At left was ATSF 8-40CW 830 amongst the warbonnets that wintry day.

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I always thought the smaller speed lettering of "Rio Grande" looked better.

Cool pic, thanks. That was back in the days when going down to the BN fueling racks was a fun place to see all sorts of locos. I remember Omnitrax had quite the assortment of ex DRGW and SP units up in Loveland which was another fun place to check out.

Joel

cozephyr Wrote:

> Denver & Rio Grande Western GP40 3071 was
> likely moving to Omnitrax at Loveland, CO, when
> spotted January 7, 1996 at BNSF's Denver
> Locomotive Shop. Her days handling coal trains
> and fighting the Colorado Rockies tough grades
> were over.

Don Strack's site shows 3071 retired May 25, 2001, so it still had a few years left with Uncle Pete in 1996. There's a 1998 photo of it at Roseville here: http://ncespee.railfan.net/drgwgp40/drgw3071.html

Those unrebuilt SP GP35's, though, were off roster and headed for parts unknown by '96.

Those geeps were worth more then tose two ATSF 8100's. Maybe thoose C30's are still chugging down in South America, who knows.

Regards
Q-GP30