Rio Grande Alco PA-1 #6011 and F7B #5712 slowly accelerate from Denver Union Station with the southbound Royal Gorge on November 15, 1958. Photo from my slide collection, photographer Lou Schmitz.

When UP and MP merged, a decision was made to pull most through traffic off the former MP line to Pueblo. That reduction was offset by Rio Grande (and later SP) trains running on rights between P... (more)

The Colorado Railroad Museum located in Golden, Colorado has a great collection of Denver Rio Grande Western engines and rolling stock, including DRGW 683, seen here dusted with a fresh layer of s... (more)

Early morning in Phippsburg, Colorado finds a cushioned underframe, double door, fifty foot box car in the most iconic Rio Grande paint scheme at the end of a cut of cars.

Little Depot in the Sky

A top the highest active railroad in the United States is the Cumbres Depot, nee Section House, straddling the divide at Cumbres Pass, elevation 10,015 fe... (more)

Three thousand and two black horses move west high in the Rocky Mountains. Three thousand of them are in the form of a Rio Grande SD40T-2, leading a 56 car Craig Switcher at Hayden, Colorado.

Fully loaded, Denver & Rio Grande Western Train 702 departs the Energy Mine for Public Service of Colorado’s Cherokee Plant in Denver. This crew will take the train as far as Phippsburg, where i... (more)

Denver & Rio Grande Western Train 702 creeps along as its cars are flood loaded. The coal is from the Energy Mine at the end of the Energy Branch at the far reaches of the Denver & Salt Lake main ... (more)

Rio Grande SD50s 5503, 5515 and 5502 have held the main at Floy to meet an eastbound and are now underway with a consist of Coors beer and pigs. The train was soon pulled off its former Rio Grande... (more)

With storms looming, Denver & Rio Grande Western Train 702 moves east on the Denver & Salt Lake main line near Milner, Colorado.

The ski resort at Steamboat Springs, Colorado looms in the distance as eastbound Denver & Rio Grande Western Train 702 passes between a Sperry car and the depot.

With 73 loads from the Energy Mine, eastbound Denver & Rio Grande Western Train 702, passes a Sperry car and the station at Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The train is bound for Public Service of Co... (more)

Denver & Rio Grande Western Train 701, westbound empties bound for the Energy Mine, rolls between Oak Creek and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Three of the latest additions to the Rio Grande roster,... (more)

My great, great uncle Robert F. McKee, Sr., was a design engineer at Baldwin and he would give my father different Baldwin Locomotive Works builder's cards when my father would visit him in Collin... (more)