Denver, CO: Union Station

(Satellite)

Bob Chaparro shared from HagleyDigitalArchives
Union Depot – Denver (1906)
James Vaitkunas: Note the three-rail track. D&RG RR heading west!

𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗼 posted

Union Station in the Late Nineteenth Century! 

📸 • History Colorado

 

Kevin McCarthy commented on the above post
This would be the 1894 incarnation after the March 1894 fire. It would remain in this configuration until it was remodeled in 1914. Below is Union Station as it looked from 1881 to 1894. Note the dual gauge trackage.

William A. Shaffer posted
Denver Union Station (Circa April,1982)
(Photo by William A. Shaffer)

 

Viral Media posted
DRGW on the point of the ski train while DRGW 3079 on the point of Amtrak #5, at Denver, CO. The ski train occasionally ran in the summer, and this is one such trip, though of course not for skiing. July 24, 1984

Connor Leon Pack: What year did they sever the through tracks and make DUT into a stub-end terminal?

Mike Ramsey: Connor Leon Pack The RTD Southwest Light Rail Line opened in 1994 so it would have been sometime in the early 90’s.

[I've ridden Amtrak from Chicago to Denver a few times, and it takes along time to do the backing maneuver into the station.]

Richard Crabtree posted

Down at the Station early in the Mornin'

Here we see brand new Denver & Rio Grande Western No. 3612 L-132 2-8-8-2 Mallet on exhibition at Union Station in Denver, Colorado taken on June 25, 1930.

Photographed by Otto Conrad Perry

Denver Public Library Digital Collection

 

American-Rails.com posted

Rio Grande buffet-lounge-observation 'Silver Sky' brings up the tail end of the "Rio Grande Zephyr" at Denver Union Station; August 2, 1976. Carl Sturner photo. American-Rails.com collection.

https://www.american-rails.com/rgz.html

James Bowen: These heavy concrete platform canopies were in place when I arrived in Denver by train Pearl Harbor Day 1989, replaced twice as the station was renovated, and now in the interest of a modern, foolish design none exist!

 

Bill Rettberg Jr. posted
Denver Colorado 1978.

Al Peterson: Latest scheduled run of the UP 'City of Portland', ran through Denver from January 1959 until 1967. The train was discontinued May 1, 1971, with the takeover of Union Pacific's passenger services by Amtrak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Portland_(train) [I wondered why UP was running through Denver.]

[A commented pointed out that Beatrice Foods has been converted to Icehouse Condominium.]

My kids liked the train, so we used to take sleepers on the Zephyr when we went from Chicago to Denver. Back in the 1990s, this place was a lonely place when we got off the train. It looks like the neighborhood has been gentrified.

Street View

Chris Ness posted
Denver Union Station.
Date unknown, but before the abomination.

Paul Jevert shared
Rock Island "Rocky Mountain Rocket" with E7 #637 backs into Denver Union Station.
Donald Sims photo
Don Gerdts posted
An E7 backs Rock Island’s Rocky Mountain Rocket into Denver Union Station in the early 1950s. Meanwhile, five tracks to the right, a Union Pacific switcher pulls a consist from the station.
Donald Sims photo
Larry Ellis Reed: Obviously the Denver section; remember, the Rocky Mountain Rocket also had a section for Colorado Springs, with the two being set out westbound (and rejoined eastbound) at Limon, CO.
Paul Jevert shared
Rock Island at Denver

Ken Bryan posted
A nightshot from a couple years ago of Denver Union Station. Thankfully they saved some of the old architecture when they updated the trackside in a much more modern motif.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Ken's post
Because of the platform roof, it was hard to find a shot of the original station from the California Zephyr yesterday.
Ken Bryan: That new platform roof is kind of strange and a wild difference from the station architecture.

It is a long backing move with several stops and starts so the crew can step out and throw turnouts. This is not the biggest collection of locomotives we saw. But we did see this spot during both the arrival and departure. I took this photo when we departed. There is a loco still in Sante Fe behind the second BN loco at this diesel shop, but I didn't get the camera ready in time. There was also a CB&Q boxcar with the "Everywhere West" slogan still painted on it. But I see I didn't grab a photo of it. Bummer!

In 2019 we took the Zephyr to Salt Lake City. I presume the elaborate canopy was built when RTD service was added to the station. We see a RTD train in the background of the first photo I took when we stopped at the station. I also took a couple of photos to capture how elaborate the new canopy structure is.

20191128 0304

Chris Ness posted
Denver Union Station as it was. (5/5/08)

Chris Ness posted
Denver Union Station as it is now.
Nick Ploysa: Track 5, left. Track 4, right. Amtrak usually uses 4.

Chris Ness posted
One more of Denver Union Station after remodeling.
Randy Sweeney: Been there in the driving snow... doesn't work well.
Shooshie R: I absolutely love it, but I can see some future management scrapping it and putting up a shed, rather than trying to find someone to custom make the parts to fix it. But it is beautiful while it lasts! I wish more things were designed so well.
Ron Devito: Architectural clash. The remodel looks awful.

Chris Ness posted
I would be remiss to not include a photo of the interior before it ceased to be a train station.
Denver Union Station, Colorado. 5/17/2007

St. Elmo, IL: SX Tower: (UP+NS)/C&EI vs. CSX/Pennsy

(Satellite, the tower is gone)

One of seven images posted by Doug Forbes asking about the location of the first floor door.

David Forbes commented on Doug's post
This is the original SX (Saint Elmo) tower.
Dennis DeBruler: I wondered why the signaling pipelines were going just West of the tower. Then I saw the turnout machine in the foreground. So this was some sort of hybrid tower.
[It looks like the Pennsy depot in the right background on the south side of the tracks.]

David Forbes commented on Doug's post
This is the later rebuild version of SX Tower.

David Forbes commented on his "rebuilt" comment

David Forbes commented on Doug's post
This is an image from a high-def scan of the St. Elmo refinery photo. It looks to me like there is a panel door in the brick underneath the second story door.

Today, the Pennsy is no longer double tracked and the diamond has been replaced by two turnouts.

Satellite

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Davenport, IA: CP/ICE/Milwaukee Nahant Yard and Roundhouse

(Satellite)

In addition to a standing roundhouse, this yard still has most of its tracks. Judging by the variety of freight cars in the satellite image, the yard is still being used for classification rather than for storage.

Andrew Elges posted two photos with the comment: "Roundhouse with two bays still in use and a turntable. Taken at CP Nahant Yard in Davenport, Iowa, 3 Apr 2021."

1

2

Mansfield, OH: Grain Elevator Expansion and Liebherr's 1450 & 1500

(3D Satellite)

The bin on the left is a new million bushel bin that brings the elevator's capacity up to 5.2 million bushels. [AllCrane]

ALL Erection and Crane Rental posted
ALL Erection and Crane Rental, a member of the ALL Family of Companies, sent two Liebherr all-terrains to help expand grain operations for Centerra Co-Op in Mansfield, OH. Big farming requires big machinery. Read the article here: https://www.allcrane.com/Articles/big-harvest

 

AllCrane
[The 1450 is a 550 ton crane and the 1500 is a 600t crane. The conveyor is 197' long and weights 80,000 pounds. The bins are 114' high.]

CenterraCoop

Jennifer Warden, Apr 2021

The tower in the above photo is on the left side of the view below. So they built the new bin on the north side of the elevator.

Street View, Sep 2018

I saved this image to record that it does get rail service. There are 2-car and 3-car cuts of hoppers parked at the elevator. I wonder if that is incoming fertilizer because Norfolk Southern now owns these Pennsy tracks and NS would want to ship unit trains of grain. The siding capacity here doesn't look large enough to accommodate unit trains. But that is a lot of grain storage for just a feed mill. So I can't figure out if and how this elevator ships grain.

Satellite

1:56 video @ 1:17
Flying the Bridge

They have reinvented grain doors so that they can load containers with grain.

5:39 video @ 3:53

2:01 video @ 0:58
"We can elevate grain at about 40,000 bushels per hour."

The link for the above video came from this post. Since I don't know where that elevator is, I'm parking this train loading information here.

Joseph Tuch Santucci posted

Let the grain begin! The fall harvest is in full swing and this time of year has the rail industry moving considerable amounts of grain. While they move grain year round, in the fall and winter the grain movements really amp up and become as regular as rain. When I worked in Montana during the grain rush we routinely moved five or six grain trains per day. 

Here we see a modern grain elevator. The steel storage bins have replaced the old concrete towers. These elevators also use loop tracks to load. The loop is long enough to hold the largest train they load allowing the train to clear the main track. The train will fit between the loading area of the elevator and the connection to the main track. It will also allow the train to fit from the elevator loading area and the connection to the main track once the train is loaded. So essentially it’s somewhat over two train lengths. Elevators like this are designed to load hundred plus car trains at a time. In Montana we usually operated 115 car grain trains.  

At these elevators the inbound power stays on the train and is used to load the grain usually with the inbound crew if time allows. Once spotted and when loading begins, the train will pull very slowly under the spout. The train will be loaded on the move with few stops if things are working well. The loading crew will stop for a break or lunch though. 

There is a car reader just in advance of the loader that reads the tags on the cars. Each car has a tag on either side and the reader will send a signal to the car as it passes which briefly activates the tag which responds to the reader. The tag contains information about the car including the car initials and number, its light weight and its load limit. Load limit is the actual load plus the car weight. The modern grain hoppers have load limit of 286,000 pounds including car weight. Most grain hoppers weigh in the 57,000 to 60,000 pound range. There are also aluminum body cars which weigh less when empty so they can hold more product but the load limit is still 286,000. Once the tag is clear of the reader it deactivates. 

When the loading is completed the can be pulled up to the connection to the main track. When the train is released and the crew receives their paperwork, if they have the time and get the authority, they can enter the main track and depart. Since the train remained in one piece, they do not have to perform a brake test. 

The information for every rail car used in interchange service in North America is stored in a system called UMLER which is an acronym for Universal Machine Language Equipment Register. The car reader is linked to UMLER and it retrieves the information and feeds it to the computer system that loads the car. It will automatically measure the proper amount of grain to load in each car. Before there was the UMLER computer system, the information from each car would have to be manually read and entered to load the car properly. 

Older elevators do not have loops but instead have yards where the inbound empty train will be yarded into several tracks. These elevators have their own locomotives and crews to move one track at a time for loading. They too will load on the move, but it takes longer as once a cut of cars is loaded it will have to be shoved back into the track where it was yarded and then another track pulled out from the yard to load. Once the train is loaded and released, an outbound crew will be called, bring in their own engines, reassemble the train, perform a brake test and depart. 

Many of the older elevators are located in areas where there is development around them where they cannot build loop tracks to load. So this older, well established and time tested method of loading will continue on for years to come. The elevator about two miles from my home recently added capacity to their yard so they can load longer trains. This elevator has two locomotives with each one coupled to a track so as soon as one track is loaded and shoved back in the clear, the other locomotive immediately pulls another track out to load. 

In either case, once it is released and ready to depart, the train is now set to begin its journey to the customer who has purchased the grain. 

The engineer in this photo was mugging it up for the camera which is not a bad thing.

Frank Koch: The railcar owners charge by time. Fast loading has a great savings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPfkGiGEhpI

Colorado Springs, CO: Colorado Midland/Midland Terminal Roundhouse

(3D Satellite)

This roundhouse is out of my "territory," but any roundhouse that has been preserved by reuse is worth investigating.

Ted Gregory shared a post of two photos by Scott Janz with the comment: "Colorado Midland/Midland Terminal roundhouse at Colorado Springs, CO. 1940's and modern screenshot from Google."

1

2

Mark Afman posted

Built in about 1889 for the Colorado Midland Railroad, the roundhouse was used by the Midland Terminal Railway after 1918 and then converted to a Van Briggle Art Pottery showroom and factory in the early 1950s. In 2008–9 the building was renovated to house shops, offices, and a restaurant.

Source: Colorado Encyclopedia

Rolando Maggi shared

Dennis DeBruler: Location: https://www.google.com/.../@38.8399463.../data=!3m1!1e3..

Richard Crabtree posted four images with the comment:

Colorado Midland Roundhouse

Here we are at the Colorado Midland ~ Midland Terminal Roundhouse constructed in 1889 in what was Colorado City now Colorado Springs, Colorado

Photo 1) Colorado Midland No. 27 ~ Class 102 4-6-0 (Schenectady 1888) on turntable.

Colorado Springs, Colorado

July, 1918

Photo Otto Conrad Perry

DPLDC

Photo 2) The gents of the Colorado Midland Roundhouse 1910s Photo UKP

Photo 3) Colorado Springs, Colorado Sanborn Maps LOC

Photo 4) Midland Terminal Roundhouse & Yards Colorado Springs, Colorado 1939

— in Colorado Springs, CO.

Roger Eyrich shared

1

2

3

4

Richard Crabtree posted

Here we see Midland Terminal No. 56 Class 29-1 Consolidation (Schenectady 1896) in the MT Yard in Colorado City.

Colorado City, Colorado

May 30, 1947

Photo Ralph Ellsworth Hallock

Richard Crabtree shared

Midland Terminal Roundhouse Colorado City, Colorado

Richard Shulby: NICE PHOTO! Correction notes- location is Colorado Springs, CO, where the facility still exists as part of a shopping center, and it was originally built for the Colorado Midland RR in 1888, predecessor to the Midland Terminal Railway. Thanks for posting!

An interior shot of a tenant gives us a feel for the rather massive size of the building.

Austin Moore, Mar 2021

And this view reveals rough-cut stone construction of the walls.

evandro silveira, Sep 2020

Another tenet appears to be a museum. They did not alter the roof support as drastically.

Swadhin Dol, Jan 2021

The Street View driver must have been a railfan because I don't think they normally cruise parking lots of a shopping mall.

Street View

1948 Colorado Springs Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Laurenz Edelman posted

I needed to eat and found a place that sounded promising, Colorado Mountain Brewery. It took some time for me to realize I was sitting inside a former roundhouse.

Originally built for the Colorado Midland and passed on to the Midland Terminal Railway, which stopped operating in 1949.

Colorado Springs. Aug 30 2024

Mike Bartels: Prior to this reuse it had been the Van Briggle Pottery Works.

Kristjan VanWinkle: Mike Bartels I think there was also a gym in there as well.

Art Hoffman commented on Laurenz's post

Gardner, IL: Junction Tower: Aban/Big Four/K&S vs. UP/GM&O

(RR Aban Map, the actual route was a little further south; Satellite)

K&S = Kankakee and Seneca Railroad

All traces of the K&S are gone on the satellite image. That is when I decided to take a look at a 1940 aerial photo. That is when I learned the RR Aban Map route is a little too far north. OpenRailwayMap has an accurate route, but I can't figure out how to get a specific URL to the location.

The oldest topo map available is 1948 and the K&S does not appear as an old railroad grade.

David Cantrell posted
Big 4 Depot, Interlock Tower, and Light Plant at Gardner, IL

Dennis DeBruler commented on David's post

The depot was still standing in 1940 so I could confirm that this view is looking West.

https://clearinghouse.isgs.illinois.edu/.../000p6a042.jpg

Jeff Geisler posted
[I think we are looking Southwest along the GM&O. I think we see the GM&O depot in the background on the right side of the tracks. That puts the tower in the southwest quadrant. But the aerial photo makes it look like the tower was in the northeast quadrant. I'm going with the ground photos rather than the aerial photo. Note how the signalling pipelines that go East along the K&S first go southwest along the GM&O, then cross the tracks and come back northeast to turn east.]

It is interesting how the farmers west of this field were able to erase all evidence of the K&S RoW but we still see the diagonal route across this field. Strip mining has, of course, erased evidence of the RoW east of here.

Satellite

It also looks like the strip mining company moved the Mazon River to the west. That would have been a trivial task for the dragline that this coal mine had.

1940 Aerial Photo from ILHAP