Rio Grande GP9 #5904, dressed in 'Billboard Grande' livery, sets out a string of flat cars for loading on the Geneva Pipe Mill Spur in Vineyard, Utah. In the background at right is 'Slag Mountain'... (more)

Rio Grande 5771 departs Provo Yard leading ballast train #684 on July 20, 1983.

The westbound Ski Train is rounding the Big Ten curve near Rocky as the train makes the 56 miles trip out of Denver to Winter Park Resort. This train was 14 passenger cars and could transports 750... (more)

With 54 cars of empty beer cars, a few perishables and intermodal hung on the rear, #144 climbs the 1% grade through the mud hills between Solitude and Floy, Utah, right before sunset in April 198... (more)

Crew of westbound #251 gives the highball wave to #146 as it roars by at Sphinx, west of Green River, Utah, on a Kodachrome sky day.

Train #146 speeds across the desert at Sphinx with the stunning Book Cliffs providing a surreal backdrop. Photograph made on shoulder of highway 6/50 and clear of railroad property.

Traversing fields of alfalfa and winter wheat, Rio Grande's Midvale Tramp rambles west approaching Welby Yard in West Jordan. Note the tiny plane among the cumulous clouds, preparing to land at Sa... (more)

Solitude. . . is there a more aptly named location on the Rio Grande than that? The lonely siding in the Green River Desert bears witness to the approach a short #144 on an April morning in 1989,... (more)

Due to a fatal automobile accident involving Rio Grande's Midvale Tramp in West Jordan, the D&RGW sought ways to increase the train's visibility. SD9 #5310 was modified to include a oscillating Gy... (more)

Few deserts are truly flat. . .certainly the Rio Grande in eastern Utah isn't--a series of dips up and down from water course to water course brings the railroad across the lunar landscape from He... (more)

Rio Grande Business Car 100, the 'Wilson McCarthy' is spotted on the house track at Castilla on July 16, 1983. This happened to be the first day Amtrak's California Zephyr trains #5 and 6 ran acro... (more)

It seemed fitting that one of the last trains I would see operating over Tennessee Pass was led by a Rio Grande Tunnel Motor. If I recall the events of that day correctly, AHNOA (Autos - Herringt... (more)

A pair of Rio Grande GP9s drag a heavy coal train across the Union Pacific Provo Subdivision at Lakota Crossing. In 1985, these diamonds were removed and switches added to connect UP trains onto t... (more)

Not your typical power set at Rio Grande's Roper Yard in the 1980s! The D&RGW's famous F9 trio were assigned to work ballast trains after the demise of the Rio Grande Zephyr. The 5771, 5762, 5763 ... (more)

By the mid-1980s, most cabooses on the D&RGW were living on borrowed time. Caboose 01489 was spotted in fresh paint near Provo on June 20, 1984. It was originally constructed by the Rio Grande at ... (more)