Joint Line bottleneck Three trains are in view near Palmer Lake, Colorado, at a location know as “Sag” or Spruce. When the Santa Fe built its line between Colorado Springs and Denver, Rio Grande was already there, and per agreements, had to utilize several flyovers. One of these is seen here between the trains. In 1918, Colorado and Southern (later, Burlington Northern)/Santa Fe and Rio Grande began a joint operating agreement and the Joint Line was born. The tracks were realigned and crossovers were eliminated to simplify operations. But the 1974 removal of the Santa Fe route through Colorado Springs created a single-track bottleneck between Palmer Lake and Crews. That is where this photo fits in. On December 11, 1997, a northbound Union Pacific freight powered with all three of the former Rio Grande GP60s stalled on the grade between Colorado Springs and Palmer Lake, on single track, of course! It was eventually decided to push the freight from behind with a following BNSF coal train. The three SD70MACs came through with flying colors, but unfortunately with all of the delays, the sun has already set on this short winter day. In this view, the UP train has just been cut off of the coal train, while in the foreground, a BNSF coal load waits at the approach signal for Palmer Lake and awaits its turn for the single-track.
