Friday, March 19, 2010

D&RGW

No, it's not the initials for some new LCMS task force. The letters stand for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. Once the king of the Rocky Mountains, this railroad was swallowed by the Union Pacific in 1996. The Rio Grande chugged higher than any other mainline railroad in the U.S., crossing Tennessee Pass in Colorado at 10,240 feet, and its silver rails snaked through the Royal Gorge and under the Continental Divide via the Moffat Tunnel.

I shot these photos long before the advent of digital photography, around 1982 in Denver. The cars pictured here were a part of the Rio Grande Zephyr, which originally was a part of the famed California Zephyr until its demise in 1970. The day of the mighty steam locomotive and the E-unit are largely gone, but they live on in the hearts of rail fans and in the pages of cyberspace. If you enjoy railroad photography, head over to dogcaught: a railroad blog, where they've got superb photos of present-day railroading.


4 comments:

IggyAntiochus said...

I thought maybe D&RGW was the proposed new name for the synod! ;)

RichnHim said...

Oh man, you've just warmed the cockles of a rail fan. Nice photos and theologically correct too.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh...the California Zephyr. I remember riding from California to Nebraska back in my Jr Hi school days. Thanks for the pics.

Scott Diekmann said...

I grew up in Lincoln. I can remember going down to the train station late at night when I was little and picking up my grandma, who would come in from Denver. Going down to see the CZ roll in was a major event in my life. I miss the romance of the rails.