IMG0106-BN-151-with-cars-for-6-Denver-1978-03-18
Denver, 18 March 1978
In March 1978, I finished Air Force Tech School at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas.
My orders said that I was "authorized" "commercial air" or "commercial surface" transportation. I called up my Air National Guard unit and asked them if I could use "commercial surface" to get home from Wichita Falls to Sacramento. They said it was OK with them, so instead of getting an air ticket, my friend Herbie, who was permanent party and had a car, drove me to the Wichita Falls Continental Trailways station the night that tech school ended and I caught a bus for Denver.
We were overnight to Amarillo (Amarillo by Morning is an old country song) and then spent the day going north through the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle, then through eastern Colorado. We went through Boise City, Oklahoma and Limon, Colorado, that i remember, and a look at a map says we must have been on US 287 all the way from Wichita Falls to Denver. I didn't get any train photos out the bus window. I remember seeing an ATSF train going south somewhere around Boise City and remember crossing other rail lines, but if I saw other trains in addition to the Santa Fe one, I don't remember them.
I had a lot of luggage as I was moving back home after 9 months away with all my Air Force uniforms as well as civilian clothes, so I got a cab from the bus station to the Oxford Hotel, a block from Union Station. I'd stayed at the Oxford in 1975, when I was in town for a UP 8444 special and remember the room costing $8 per night in 1975...the room was probably more expensive in 1978, but the Oxford had not yet been refurbished into the classic luxury hotel it was in 1991 when my wife and I stayed there.
After dropping my bags, I headed to Union Station and then the rail yards that used to be behind Union Station. The whole area has changed beyond recognition today, but in 1978, the area around the station was still Skid Row and behind the station were train yards. Tracks in Union Station still went through, and freights would sometimes come through on platform tracks.
With only Amtrak's SF Zephyr, the Rio Grande Zephyr and the Ski Train, Union Station was not nearly as busy as it had been even 10 years earlier when we came through on the CZ
I wandered around the yards in the late afternoon light, taking advantage of the fact that nobody seemed to care that I guy with a camea was in areas that would be off limits today. I even went into the BN roundhouse for a quick photo. UP had a DD35 in town, as well as other long vanished models.
SCL 501 was parked in the station, looking rather out of place, far from the Atlantic coast. The Nebraska Zephyr articluated set that it had been coupled to in 1975 was gone, but it was coupled to an observation car.
Shortly before the light faded, a swticher brought a couple of cars, including a dome, to be added to the SF Zephyr for the trip to Chicago. My final shot was of the Ski Train equipment parked in Union Station.
Of the photos I've taken here, the only one that could be replicated today is the view down 17th St, of the station. , and at that, the street looks a lot better today.
IMG0106-BN-151-with-cars-for-6-Denver-1978-03-18
Denver, 18 March 1978
In March 1978, I finished Air Force Tech School at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas.
My orders said that I was "authorized" "commercial air" or "commercial surface" transportation. I called up my Air National Guard unit and asked them if I could use "commercial surface" to get home from Wichita Falls to Sacramento. They said it was OK with them, so instead of getting an air ticket, my friend Herbie, who was permanent party and had a car, drove me to the Wichita Falls Continental Trailways station the night that tech school ended and I caught a bus for Denver.
We were overnight to Amarillo (Amarillo by Morning is an old country song) and then spent the day going north through the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle, then through eastern Colorado. We went through Boise City, Oklahoma and Limon, Colorado, that i remember, and a look at a map says we must have been on US 287 all the way from Wichita Falls to Denver. I didn't get any train photos out the bus window. I remember seeing an ATSF train going south somewhere around Boise City and remember crossing other rail lines, but if I saw other trains in addition to the Santa Fe one, I don't remember them.
I had a lot of luggage as I was moving back home after 9 months away with all my Air Force uniforms as well as civilian clothes, so I got a cab from the bus station to the Oxford Hotel, a block from Union Station. I'd stayed at the Oxford in 1975, when I was in town for a UP 8444 special and remember the room costing $8 per night in 1975...the room was probably more expensive in 1978, but the Oxford had not yet been refurbished into the classic luxury hotel it was in 1991 when my wife and I stayed there.
After dropping my bags, I headed to Union Station and then the rail yards that used to be behind Union Station. The whole area has changed beyond recognition today, but in 1978, the area around the station was still Skid Row and behind the station were train yards. Tracks in Union Station still went through, and freights would sometimes come through on platform tracks.
With only Amtrak's SF Zephyr, the Rio Grande Zephyr and the Ski Train, Union Station was not nearly as busy as it had been even 10 years earlier when we came through on the CZ
I wandered around the yards in the late afternoon light, taking advantage of the fact that nobody seemed to care that I guy with a camea was in areas that would be off limits today. I even went into the BN roundhouse for a quick photo. UP had a DD35 in town, as well as other long vanished models.
SCL 501 was parked in the station, looking rather out of place, far from the Atlantic coast. The Nebraska Zephyr articluated set that it had been coupled to in 1975 was gone, but it was coupled to an observation car.
Shortly before the light faded, a swticher brought a couple of cars, including a dome, to be added to the SF Zephyr for the trip to Chicago. My final shot was of the Ski Train equipment parked in Union Station.
Of the photos I've taken here, the only one that could be replicated today is the view down 17th St, of the station. , and at that, the street looks a lot better today.