To Shiny Rails

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

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.

I only today discovered that the movie “Unstoppable” about a runaway freight train was based on a true story about a CSX freight train. I was watching a YouTube video about CSX’s “Crazy Eights Incident” and realizing that at every turn the story sounded just like the movie. Turns out, there’s good reason for that. The movie was based on this 2001 incident.

I attended the 13th annual Midland Days Symposium held at the John Wesley Ranch just outside of Divide, CO on September 9th. The event is co-sponsored by Midland Days at Divide, Inc., the Teller Historic and Environmental Coalition (T.H.E. Coalition), and the Divide Chamber of Commerce. Among other things, the Midland Days group is working to restore the Midland Depot (see a brief posting) currently located on the north side of Divide on Highway 24. This year’s program included:

Chapel Cars, by Ken Valles (I did a Parlor Car Chat on Chapel Cars)
Life/Times of A.E. Carlton, by Dave Martinek
Samplers (a slideshow), by Mel McFarland
Richard Newell Homicide, by Dwight Haverkorn
Carlton Mill, by Art Crawford

As we were staying over in Saratoga for a few days on our journey to the Grand Tetons, we visited the Saratoga Museum which happens to be housed in the town’s 1915 Union Pacific Railroad Depot. It originally served the Saratoga and Encampment (S&E) lines. The Museum opened in 1980 at the depot’s/museum’s new location directly across the highway from the Saratoga Airport. The museum contains many interesting artifacts from much more than simply the railroad history.