To Shiny Rails

I finally got a chance to visit the Colorado Model Railroad Museum (CMRM) in Greeley, Colorado. And it did not disappoint. 5,500 square feet of model railroad! As a bonus of sorts was the Colorado Model Railroad Museum’s “Tinsel and Trains Gala” that night. All the trip’s photos are here. The best surprise of the visit to the CMRM was seeing the HO locomotive pictured above. I ran that very same loco on my Dad’s basement railroad in the 1970s. I actually had it for quite some time until it got lost in one of life’s shuffles.

This turned out to be an interesting story. The long and short of it is: a 20-star flag flew over the 1869 proceedings. But, the U.S. had 37 stars on its flag in 1869. Get the details on Jamie’s Flags webpage.

What do those have in common?

The SLO Railroad Museum occupies a Southern Pacific Railroad freight house that was built in 1894. In 1894, the U.S. flag had 44 stars!

For more, check out my new hobby: US Flags

Just got back from a trip to Grand Lake, CO during which we had to get back down to Granby to re-visit the Moffat Road Railroad Museum. Several things are happening there… We had to check up on their progress constructing a 7.5″ gauge ride-on railroad around their perimeter. It’s coming along! Next, we had to check out the old Dumont Depot which was moved to this museum last year and is now undergoing renovation. And lastly, their big new HO layout depicting the Moffat Road Railroad from Moffat Tunnel all the way to Craig, CO. The last (and first) time we saw this layout, it was an expansive, empty room with a concrete floor that had blue tape markings for where the benchwork would be. All the photos start here.

First, let me say… The Rocky Mountaineer trip, Rockies to the Red Rocks, between Denver, CO and Moab, UT is remarkable in every aspect. The people were great, the food was great, the service was great, the train is great, the scenery was astounding, the photo opps are great, the narrative about what we were seeing was great (history, geology, flora/fauna, tall tales); it was all great. Shoutout to the best Hosts: Olivia and Lacey. Totally worth the price of admission. And about that scenery, the majority of the majestic scenery is best seen from an observation railcar while someone else is driving. Some of it is ONLY available to train passengers. The route is the same as Amtrak’s California Zephyr from Denver, CO to Brendel, UT. (Amtrak’s California Zephyr goes from Chicago, IL to Emeryville, CA via Denver, CO, Fraser-Winter Park, CO (Moffat Tunnel), Glenwood Springs, CO, Salt Lake City, UT, Reno, NV, and Sacramento, CA.) At Brendel, UT, the Mountaineer turns south onto the Cane Creek Subdivision (some spell it Kane) paralleling Highway 191 and stops at a point about 13 miles north of Moab, UT along Highway 191. That last stretch of track is rare mileage for railfans. In 2022, the Mountaineer became the first passenger train in history to traverse that track since the track’s construction was completed in 1962. The track was constructed to connect a potash mine outside of Moab with the east-west D&RGW mainline at Brendel, UT – 10 miles east of Crescent Junction, UT. It also became used for the cleanup of radioactive materials outside of Moab. Here’s more info about this subdivision on UtahRails.net: D&RGW Cane Creek Branch. As it happens, my Dad, my Father-in-Law, and I took a trip on the Canadian Rocky Mountaineer back in 2008. My photos and stories from that trip start at this webpage: Rocky Mountaineer Calgary to Kamloops. If you want to see what the Zephyr trip across the Rockies looks like in the winter, here are some Zephyr pics in the Rockies 2005 (west to east, also my photos). All the photos from the Rocky Mountaineer portion of this 2024 trip begin here.

I took the following photos in 2023 further down the Cane Creek subdivision by the potash mine. The subdivision is nearly 41 miles long from where it starts at Brendel to where it ends at the potash mine.

Had to do something rail-related today… Afterall, it’s National Train Day. So, having not been to this place yet since moving to Colorado Springs, it was off to the Pikes Peak Trolley Museum and Restoration Shop. The big surprise was finding a Southern Pacific (SP) Daylight car in their yard. The Daylight was an SP train that ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles along the coastline from 1937 to 1974. It was painted in bright orange and red (“daylight colors”). The car is currently marked MCRX 10400 and we were told it was originally a dining car that was later converted to a maintenance-of-way car. Another bit of a surprise was they had several Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority trolleys that would have been running in Philadelphia, PA about the time my Dad (Papa Bill) was growing up there or shortly thereafter. He may well have seen or even ridden one of these! The tour ends with a little ride on a trolley up and down a short display track. The bright orange HO trolley in the middle of the first picture below is a dead-ringer for one I ran on my Dad’s HO layout in Kansas City. The bright red Cog Railway car (in the pics below) last ran on the Pikes Peak Cog Railway in 2017 (which is just before they began their $100 million renovation project – which is now complete).