Nostalgia & History > Glenwood Canyon Fire

Do a Google search for Glenwood Canyon Fire and you should be able to get one or more videos.  I will try and include a video in this posting but I don't know how successful I will be. 

The Grizzly River starts in the mountains north above the Glenwood Canyon and runs into the Colorado River at the Grizzly Rest Stop on Highway I-70 in the Glenwood Canyon.  This is where the fire is.  Across the Colorado river in the Glenwood Canyon is the railroad Grizzly siding.  This siding is where the eastbound California Zephyr is scheduled to meet the westbound California Zephyr.  I have tried to find out if the fire has affected the railroad schedules but have so far been unsuccessful. 
 
Picture 1, Call Number: Z-6357.  Title: CZ meet at Grizzly.  Creator: Brown, photographer.  Date:
1949 Aug. 28.  Summary:  View of Denver and Rio Grande Western locomotive #601 as it pulls the California Zephyr through Glenwood Canyon, Garfield County, Colorado. Another California Zephyr waits at the Grizzly siding on parallel tracks. The Colorado River and the vertical walls of the canyon are seen near the tracks.  Description.  1 transparency: col. ; 20 x 25 cm (8 x 10 in.).  Source: Otto Roach.  If you have a question or a correction regarding this resource, please contact us at history@denverlibrary.org. 
 

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Great picture!  I didn't know the CZ was powered by PA's at one time.

Both #5 and #6 are stopped today, unable to proceed.  #5 at Denver, #6 at Grand Junction.

pt199 Wrote:
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> Great picture!  I didn't know the CZ was powered
> by PA's at one time.

PA's were primary power on the D&RGW from Denver to the hand-off on the WP end from the very start when the train was inaugurated in March 1949.  They pulled the CZ first in black with yellow stripes for a few months but before the year was out they were painted silver with an orange nose, as depicted in the photo shown above, refered to by some as Aspen leaf.

The orange nose with sliver body paint scheme lasted until 1952 if I remember correctly and then the PA's were repainted into the longer lasting Grande Gold  / silver with 4 stripes.  However, due to mechanical issues, starting in the early 50's, one power set used to pull the CZ was usually a 4 unit set of F3's and the other set a PA ABA set.  At least one set of PA's continued in Zephyr service as late as 1958 (according to photo's so dated) before being sidelined to secondary passenger trains on the D&RGW.  After 1958, the CZ was powered by EMD F3's until they were retired in 1965 (last of them January 1966) so F7's and F9's took over until the train was discontinued as a thru train.

Updates

https://www.postindependent.com/  

https://www.vaildaily.com/

Some of this is a few days old and some of it is automatically updated, interesting graphics:

https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/08/12/grizzly-fire-burns-across-i-70-and-the-colorado-river/

To update this....Zephyr's been routed up up to Cheyenne and over Sherman Pass as a result of the fire.