Nostalgia & History > C&S Greeley Local - 1977

A few pictures taken during November 1977 of the Colorado & Southern's Greeley local that operated from Fort Collins to Greeley interchanging with the Union Pacific.

Back in those days the power was always an SD-9 and if there were still some Chinese Red units around I was not seeing them at this time.
Kodak located near Windsor about 1972 - 73 and that was some big new business along with the old standby feed and fertilizer. I never saw beets running by this time at the C&S Greeley Branch dumps, but they had been a big business in earlier years and still were on the Great Western and even on UP.

1. C&S 838 sits at the depot track adjacent to the Denver - Cheyenne main of Union Pacific in Greeley before leaving for Windsor and home to Fort Collins. - a cloudy dismal December 15, 1977

2. Armistice Day 1977  was sunny and nice as the train heads across the plain at Bracewell, once a sugar beet dump. C&S 821 is the power today (11-11-77)

3. On November 10, 1977 the 821 has the train in hand as it crawls at 10mph across the flat open landscape of North Central Colorado at Bracewell returning from Greeley and headed west towards Windsor and Fort Collins.
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/15 07:52 by train1275.

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4. Caboose 10628 has replaced an earlier wooden caboose formerly used on the local seen here passing westbound just east of Kodak-Windsor. The crew did not like this new caboose as well as the old wooden one as it tended to get too hot in summer. Brakeman Bill Graylock used to hose the inside floor down with a garden hose from the Windsor depot most mornings when the summer temps were expected to climb into the 80's and higher. Glenn Hosack was the Conductor on this job.  11-10-77

5. After switching out Kodak the train arrives in Windsor and is about to pass the depot where Glen Tucker is the agent. They were running early as the setting sun is low, but not down on this early November day. I knew all the crew except for the young head brakeman who was a regular on the job for some years. In this photo he is in the front window giving a middle finger salute !   11-10-77

6. On November 22, 1977, the 14th anniversary of the Assassination of JFK, there is snow on the ground and it is a chilly 23 degrees as the local arrives into Windsor on the outbound trip to Greeley. That is the new depot erected about 1973 in the scene.

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About 1973 or thereabouts, Windsor got a new depot shown here complete with neat station sign and lava rock landscaping.
The old depot was moved to a park to the north and became the Town of Windsor Museum. Through most of the late 1960's and 70's Glen Tucker was the agent until he retired out due to medical issues. I cannot remember if the job retired with him or if someone else closed Windsor - probably circa 1980 -81, but corrections welcome. Nothing is left today.

The old depot greets the arrival of C&S 840 on August 17, 1971 - I have some better shots of that era but don't seem to find them this morning. At this time the Union Pacific was on strike and the C&S was handling much of the UP traffic, the reason for so many hoppers on the siding at right.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/15 07:51 by train1275.

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Great stuff!

Hard to believe after looking at these photos that the Great Western  runs several trains a week on the Ft. Collins-Windsor line and is rebuilding the Windsor- Greeley segment.

 

Thanks for posting this series! Always very neat to see the BN/C&S at Greeley.

I just looked today at the progress of the wye at Greeley, and it is phenomenal! Looks like a new wye to a coal mine in the Powder River Basin, all the old weedy crap is gone and in its place is new CWR and high ballast, and new signals. The south leg of the wye was relocated, and it appears all the old C&S interchange tracks extending past the west side of the depot and the Greeley Freight Station Museum will be removed, as many large portions are missing now. I will miss the UP to GWR and GWR to UP trains that will be rerouted onto this line, but nearly everyone else in Fort Collins save for maybe a dozen railfans, will not miss them at all! === === = === JLH

Photo 5 with the GW plant in the background and a couple of air slides of sugar.
 

> I just looked today at the progress of the wye at Greeley, and it is phenomenal! 

> ... I will miss the UP to GWR and GWR to UP trains that will be rerouted
> onto this line, but nearly everyone else in Fort Collins save for maybe a dozen railfans, will not
> miss them at all!

Hello,

The UP-GW traffic used to move via Windsor and Kelim, rather than through Ft. Collins.  Have they been interchanging via Ft. Collins lately?  If so, does anyone know why?

Thanks,

Mark

As to photo #5, yes that was the Great Western Sugar Factory. Here is a shot of them that same day with the 821 switching the facility at the Walnut Street crossing. They had a self propelled rail crane without a boom they used as a car mover but I don't seem to have gotten a photo of it. I believe the manager there was Bob Lindquist. I remember talking to him about getting the crane out of the little engine house (just visible to the left of the pole) for a picture but do not think it ever happened.

At this time GWR was not coming into Windsor but maybe once or twice a month. During 1975 - 76 they would come over from Loveland daily and do their work and head out to Eaton and return. I do not recall what happened that by this time seeing a GW train in Windsor was RARE. Agent Tucker had said sometime in late 1976 or early 1977 the BN had an engineering team in to look over the GW to see if they wanted to take it over from Windsor to Loveland to get trains off Mason Street in Fort Collins but that apparently went nowhere.

Oh and there was the shot that got away.... I was at the Windsor depot in late 1977 or early 1978 and the local was coming in much like in Photo 5 and what happens but the GW comes back from Eaton over the diamond right behind the C&S local..... it would have taken a telephoto but at least I saw it - the one and only time.

I would be interested in knowing what the current operations have been, and what is planned for the future.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/15 10:56 by train1275.

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Nice shots! I agree with the others from this area about how things have changed!

mamfahr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello,
>
> The UP-GW traffic used to move via Windsor and
> Kelim, rather than through Ft. Collins.  Have
> they been interchanging via Ft. Collins lately? 
> If so, does anyone know why?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark

Have been for a few years, and the short answer to why is traffic volume. The last time I saw the UP "local" from LaSalle to Fort Collins it was 116 cars. Plus UP started running MNPFC, a manifest from North Platte to Fort Collins, awhile back. CEOs and execs aside, Windsor is the main beneficiary of the oil boom, that's for sure!
~wko

So what traffic patterns and amount of traffic runs where to where ?

An upgrade from Greeley to Windsor with a new wye means what ?

Since OmniTRAX owns both the old C&S Greeley branch and the GW, the BNSF traffic could go Loveland - Windsor over the off GW instead of out of Fort Collins via a portion of the UP through Timnath into Windsor ?

UP interchange out of Greeley or via LaSalle branch to Officer Jct. ?

Plain to see why the GW went away from Windsor to Eaton as I do not recall much other than maybe some periodic feed???  misc cars at Severance and the sugar mill at Eaton being the anchor for them. Several beet dumps beyond Severance?  - but I do not remember their names. 

So much has changed and it has been a while since being back there to digest it all.

I do recall it seemed hard to catch, and I never did catch the LaSalle - Fort Collins local in the late '70's on film. I saw it a few times by the I-25 overpass near the dog track but with the wind blowing about 100 mph there I didn't pull over to shoot it or try to double out and chase it. Seems GP30's were the norm the few times I saw it.
Later in 1999 when I moved back for a few years and lived near Loveland I could hear thet UP job blowing just out of town and got a few shots - ususally 3 units and a good size train headed for Fort Collins.

 

The way it is now, BNSF delivers the cars for Johnstown/Walker/Bunyan to the Great Western at Loveland and the cars for Windsor at Fort Collins. Union Pacific delivers everything for the Great Western at Fort Collins. 

In turn, the Great Western delivers cars for the BNSF from Windsor at Fort Collins and from Johnstown/Walker/Bunyan at Loveland. Great Western gives the cars back to the UP at Milliken, with the exception of unit trains (oil and blades), which are done at Fort Collins.

With the new track from Greeley to Windsor, all UP/GWR interchange would take place in the new GW yard in west Greeley, almost replacing the UP Fort Collins branch. Interchange between the GWR and BNSF would remain unchanged, although the rumor mill has BNSF wanting to interchange with GWR in Longmont, which we don't see happening. The track between Longmont and Walker is just in too rough shape.

As for traffic levels, you're looking at there being roughly 15-30 interchanged in Loveland, 30-50 in Fort Collins via BNSF, and anywhere from 20 to 135 either way on the UP. It totally depends on the day.
~wko