SP 231 and SP 227 take a loaded coal train over Tennessee Pass.

An SD45 and a couple tunnel motor roll over the now abandon Tennessee Pass.

A mixed freight operates between Princeton and Granite, CO on the Tennessee Pass route.

Empties roll along the Eagle River approaching Redcliff, CO.

An EMD lease unit leads empties through the curves at Mitchell on Tennessee Pass.

Eastbound descending the Tennessee Pass route at Vallie Siding, which is east of Salida. This line would be shut down three months later.

Dropping down the 3% grade through the Mitchell S-curve, the dynamic brakes from Rio Grande 3122, 3075 and 3142 aren't quite enough to hold the train so the Engineer has set a heavy amount of Auto... (more)

Kodachrome you give us those nice bright colors.... SP 7566 in the Kodachrome scheme, leads a colorful consist along Hwy 50 near Texas Creek on the Tennessee Pass line in June of 1989. Alas, this ... (more)

SP8255 heads west out of Minturn with 50 loads of Appalachian coking coal for Geneva Works in Utah. Norfolk Southern and Conrail visitors were common on these trains from the east.

Eastbound along the Arkansas River during the last year of operation. The last train over Tennessee Pass would run three months later.

Rocky Mountain High

The Denver & Rio Grande Western's very first SD40T-2, number 5341, leads a westbound manifest down Tennessee Pass near Leadville, Colorado, on a September 1991 af... (more)

A snow squall hits 10,424 ft. Tennessee Pass while the SGVCC glides through the famous Mitchell curves on Sept. 26, 1996.

SP166 leads the charge at Stillwater. The grade here abruptly changes from a knuckle breaking 3% too a 'level' 1%. 39,600 H.P. are needed to lift 13,000+ tons over the Continental Divide at Tenne... (more)

SP186, and two other motors crawl towards the Continental Divide. The train is twisting thru severe curvature and the sound of steel on steel is deafening..... It is this rail-fans perspective tha... (more)

Where silence now reigns
At a place today where all you hear is wind off lofty peaks and coyote yelps, was once a place where trains fought grades up a 10,221-foot mountain pass. On Jul... (more)