Along Colorado’s front range it’s never too late in the season for a spring snowstorm. On a mid-April afternoon, 1967, Santa Fe E8M 81 leads train 28 though a thawing landscape near Larkspur on the Joint Line. A collection of mail storage cars, express, and a couple chair cars, the train originated as Santa Fe 201 in La Junta, changed numbers in Pueblo, and is now headed for an early evening arrival in Denver, with return as train 27-190 after dark. Theoretically, the train makes connections with Santa Fe’s Chief in La Junta. All this will end in exactly four years as Amtrak takes over Santa Fe’s passenger runs and drops the Denver train.
