Western Roads Wednesday

Lionel Northern Pacific RS-11 

MTH engine and cars

MTH Spokane Portland & Seattle RS-3

The AT&SF picking up passengers.

Pre-merger paint schemes..

I guess these two cars qualify for western roads.  Armour Stockyard Express and Northern Pacific. 

@trumpettrain posted:

I guess these two cars qualify for western roads.  Armour Stockyard Express and Northern Pacific. 

I would think so. Anything West of the Mississippi will do for me. Thanks for posting Patrick!

My family and I visited Colorado's Georgetown Loop in May 2016.  Here are some photos.  NH Joe

The Silver Plume shops.

Silver Plume is the end of the line.  

The old Depot was still a restaurant in May 2016.  We had a good hamburger there.  

The Great Northern

The Super Chief

                                                BF70-7 , Weathered car # 1801

A Williams WP passing through on the S&Y RR.

Just made it. Pretty western. 

Rainier Beer from Seattle, Washington.

             U P...  in Maumee, Ohio...

                Marci's photo...

I rode the Royal Gorge Railway at Canon City, CO in May 2016.  Here are some photos.  NH Joe

The train has an attractive red, white and blue color scheme.  Perhaps I should say blue, white and red?

This is the Royal Gorge along the Arkansas River.  There was no room to build a conventional bridge so the railroad built the famous hanging bridge.  The bridge is supported by the rock on both sides of the gorge with suspension beams.  The track is suspended by cables hung from the suspension beams.  I have some close up photos of the construction.  

Suspension cable (below).

Suspension beams (girders) where they attach to the rock.  

Electric lines are carried across the top of the bridge.

This where the suspension cable attaches to the bridge deck.  

Bill T,  unfortunately Rainier Beer is no longer brewed in Seattle.  Pabst Brewing Co. is the owner. Rainer Beer has been produced under contract in Irwindale, Ca.

Larry

@PSAP2010 posted:

Bill T,  unfortunately Rainier Beer is no longer brewed in Seattle.  Pabst Brewing Co. is the owner. Rainer Beer has been produced under contract in Irwindale, Ca.

Larry

Yep, I knew that. Back in the 70's when the brewery was still in operation I worked at a DC located on Airport Way in Seattle. Passed by the brewery everyday.

@New Haven Joe posted:

I rode the Royal Gorge Railway at Canon City, CO in May 2016.  Here are some photos.  NH Joe

The train has an attractive red, white and blue color scheme.  Perhaps I should say blue, white and red?

This is the Royal Gorge along the Arkansas River.  There was no room to build a conventional bridge so the railroad built the famous hanging bridge.  The bridge is supported by the rock on both sides of the gorge with suspension beams.  The track is suspended by cables hung from the suspension beams.  I have some close up photos of the construction.  

Suspension cable (below).

Suspension beams (girders) where they attach to the rock.  

Electric lines are carried across the top of the bridge.

This where the suspension cable attaches to the bridge deck.  

That bridge is amazing! Great pictures. Thanks for posting. 

The Great Northern.

Westbound, Southern Pacific cab-forward #4138 begins climbing 2% grade to Armstrong at Cumberland. 

Just got this ABB set (Premier PS3) of SP PAs as backup power for my SP GS4 Northern on the Golden State.

After leaving Canon City Colorado, my family and I drove south over Raton Pass into New Mexico.  Here are photos of Raton.

NH Joe

This is the Raton visitor center.  The city is trying to promote tourism.  This is a good place to visit to learn about the history of the area.  The yellow flag below the American flag is the New Mexico State flag.  

Below - Track view looking south toward Santa Fe (Lamy) and Albuquerque.

Below - Track view looking north toward Raton Pass and Colorado.  Note the mountains in the distance.  

Raton Amtrak Station.  

Downtown Raton.  This was once a very busy railroad town where Santa Fe stationed helper engines to get trains over the pass.  In 2016 it was  almost a ghost town.  It was sad to see this.  

Driving south toward Las Vegas, NM, we encountered the Southwest Chief speeding north toward Raton, Colorado and eventually Chicago.  I believe that this is almost the only train that uses this route.  This photo was taken through the car windshield.  

Another photo of the Southwest Chief.  

This is wayyyyyyyyy out West. Don

NH Joe - The Raton Station is where Boy Scouts leave the train to bus over to the Philmont Scout Ranch just outside of Cimarron, NM. When several crews of scouts either arrive or leave it gets quite busy. We had 2 crews of 20 each and spent 12 days hiking in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, not to mention the 20-24 hour Amtrak ride each way. Can't find my photos of the trip, otherwise would have posted a shot of when its busy.  Jeff 

@ScoutingDad posted:

NH Joe - The Raton Station is where Boy Scouts leave the train to bus over to the Philmont Scout Ranch just outside of Cimarron, NM. When several crews of scouts either arrive or leave it gets quite busy. We had 2 crews of 20 each and spent 12 days hiking in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, not to mention the 20-24 hour Amtrak ride each way. Can't find my photos of the trip, otherwise would have posted a shot of when its busy.  Jeff 

Thank you for the information about the Scouts.  I would love to see the station when it is busy.  Raton looked more like a flag stop when I visited.  

I didn't go to Philmont when I was a Scout.  I don't know if Philmont was open in 1962.  I went to a canoe camp on the border between Minnesota and Canada.  The camp was near Ely, MN.  I don't recall the camp's name.  It was a wonderful two weeks in the wilderness.  

My Scout group took the El Capitan from LA to Chicago and back.  I remember watching the train climb Raton grade.  I don't remember seeing the town of Raton.  I don't think that the El Capitan stopped at Raton going in either direction.  The El Capitan looked almost like today's Southwest Chief with its high-level coaches and diner.  The Santa Fe El Capitan had better coach seats,  lounge, and diner than today's train.  

The whole trip was by train.  When our group got to Chicago, we changed stations and caught a Milwaukee Road overnight train to St. Paul.  From there we caught a Soo Line train to Ely or somewhere nearby.  The last few miles were by bus.  

We had an interesting trip back to Chicago.  We were dropped off in the afternoon in a very small town whose name that I can't recall.  All of us Scouts went to local hamburger place for lunch / dinner.  It was one of the those classic hamburger places with the booth, bar stools, etc.  It looked like Mels from Happy Days.  The milk shakes were very good.  

After dinner we wandered around town and then went back to the station.  There was a coach parked on a siding.  We tried to fall asleep after boarding the coach but it was old, uncomfortable, and what passed for air conditioning barely worked if it it had air conditioning.  I think that the windows opened so it probably didn't have AC.  MN is hot and muggy during the summer.  

At about 7 pm, a short train powered by four or five Soo Line GP?s came by and picked up the coach.  The train picked up another coach full of kids at the next stop.  Evidently, there were a lot of summer kids camps bordering the local lakes.  

As the train proceeded through the night, it kept stopping to add cars.  The train jerked back and forth and there were loud bangs all night.  Sleep was impossible.  This wasn't the Super Chief.

By the time we got to Chicago the train was about 20 cars long.  There were four or five coaches at the end of the train and the rest were refrigerated cars as best as I can remember.  I don't know what was in the head end cars.  It was probably milk or produce from all the farm towns.  I just remember it was a very long walk lugging my luggage from the end of the train to the head of the station.  All the coaches were at the end of the train.  We had to change stations again to get the El Capitan back to LA.

I am surprised that the Scouts still take the train to Philmont.  It would seem to me that a flight to Alburquerque and a bus to Philmont would be much easier and much faster.   NH Joe

Running late today. Caught this guy in St. Louis last spring 

Trainman ATSF Dash 8-40CW upgraded with fixed pilots and detailing:

Hey NH Joe and all,  located a couple of CDs with images of Raton NM station.  I cannot believe this was 17 years ago. As I recall the day was bright and sunny, temps into the 100's - but it was a dry heat. Shade was at a premium. Amtrak was late coming out of LA.   

First photo is just kids being kids, but with BNSF 5313 Dash 9 engine passing by (internet is a wonderful thing) . I assume it was a freight.

Second photo is just scouts passing time waiting for our ride to show up, but shows a bit more of the station. 

Third photo is how the scouts learned to "stack" their back packs in an orderly fashion. Much easier to keep an eye on your gear. Looks like there were 6 to 7 crews coming back - so that would have been 120 to 140 scouts. 

Not much going on in that town in 2003, can't imagine its any better today. As Joe said - just a rail stop to go somewhere else. 

This trek we decided to ride Amtrak as opposed to trying to fly with a group of 40. Time wise you may save a day of vacation by flying. You still have a 6 hour bus ride from Denver to Cimarron. Tough call - 2 to 3 adults wrangling 17 to 18 boys ages ranging from 14 to 17 years old. And you are on the trail for 12 days after you get there. Certainly not a vacation, but quite an adventure - even riding the rails !  Never could sleep in those seats - a couple of the smaller boys climbed up into the luggage racks to sleep, others slept in the stainless steel luggage racks down below while others squeezed under the seats and slept on the floor. As I recall our group had the car to ourselves - not sure if that was Amtrak or people realizing it probably was not the best idea to be in the same car as 35 young kids.  

Western Roads

Southern Pacific!!!

The Texas Special

This is a old Atlas O 

SP 6000 leading the Daylight.

Moving some pigs..

MTH Great Northern Y-1

Lindgren: Nice Grande loco and nice towers!

Unloading some Produce at the C.E.S. Warehouse. This old Revell Kenworth I Custom built many years ago is hooked to a Lionel 40’ Piggyback Trailer