View allAll Photos Tagged riogrande
Rio Grande train No. 146 rolls through Spring Glen, minutes after a crew change at Helper Yard on Aug. 16, 1987. The Book Cliffs mark the background in this perspective of Utah’s scenic Castle Valley area.
With nine outbound loads from Intrepid Potash, the LDG51B navigates back to back 5 degree curves on the 1.2% climb to Bootlegger Canyon.
In his book Never on Wednesday, photographer Mel Patrick called this area of the Utah desert a “moonscape”, and I can’t imagine anywhere on earth that would more closely resemble the lunar surface. Here the sun has ducked below the horizon, but there was still a westbound near and we waited for it. There’s definitely a feel of railroading on the moon.
If you don’t have Never on Wednesday, I highly recommend that you seek a copy. It is a spectacular black and white photo essay about the Rio Grande Zephyr, and includes very thorough coverage of the most remote and scenic locations along the route.
The Rio Grande Zephyr train No. 18 emerges from a storm system at Castilla in Spanish Fork Canyon on Nov. 18, 1978.
A quartet of big EMD locomotives shove on the rear of Rio Grande train 126 along the Thistle Line Change in Spanish Fork Canyon the afternoon of Sept. 7, 1987.
Rio Grande SD50 No. 5505 leads train No. 195 along Geneva Steel near Vineyard, Utah the evening of Aug. 25, 1987. I knew this train was coming westward from Provo, and was looking for a new angle for a photograph along what is a rather uninteresting tangent of track. I perched myself on a large mountain of dark, black, oily material that actually smelled pretty awful. The opposite side of the track includes 'slag mountain', an accumulation of byproduct compiled over decades of steel making.
The Rio Grande Gorge is a geological feature in northern New Mexico where the watercourse of the Rio Grande follows a tectonic chasm. Beginning near the Colorado border, the approximately 50-mile gorge runs from northwest to southwest of Taos, New Mexico, through the basalt flows of the Taos Plateau volcanic field.
Rio Grande priority train No. 187 descends the 2% grade through Gilluly, Utah on July 24, 1987. The train is 10 miles by rail from Soldier Summit, and has already dropped nearly 1000 feet of elevation in that distance. The scar along the distant hillside (upper right) is the D&RGW right of way entering Davidson Canyon.
Rio Grande GP40-2 No. 3101 pulls the PRGVR along the Tintic Branch at Elberta, Utah the afternoon of March 16, 1995.
Rio Grande GP60 Nos. 3156 and 3154 lead a passenger special downgrade through a cut past milepost 23 at Coal Creek between Plainview and Clay, Colorado, on October 20, 1997.
Rio Grande K37 #497 banked by K36 #463 work hard up the 1 in 25 grade at Coxo Colorado. At an altitude of 9753 feet above sea level in the Rockies, this is serious railroading and one of the best experiences of my life.
On the same day that hundreds of steam enthusiasts followed UP 844 over Tennessee Pass, yours truly was in Utah photographing the disappearing Denver & Rio Grande Western. A quartet of six axle EMDs pull 77 loads of coal through Spanish Fork Canyon between Detour and Mill Fork the evening of June 22, 1997.
The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, locally known as the "Gorge Bridge" or the "High Bridge", is a steel deck arch bridge across the Rio Grande Gorge 10 miles northwest of Taos, New Mexico, United States. Roughly 600 ft above the Rio Grande, it is the tenth highest bridge in the United States.
A westbound merchandise train makes an appearance at the Rio Grande depot in Provo, Utah on Nov. 6, 1985.
The westbound Rio Grande Zephyr is stretching its legs as it is making track speed west of Glenwood Springs at Newcastle, Colorado.
Wearing a fresh coat of Imron paint, F9A No. 5771 leads the Rio Grande Zephyr through Price Canyon the evening of July 2, 1979.
....frozen margarita...the most important part of the meal! :D
Hipstamatic photo...got this app after seeing it on Nikki's flickr! :D
Taken with my iPhone...haha...and first time to upload a picture from the iPhone! :D
With leaves turning on nearby Maple Mountain, Rio Grande train No. 242 climbs through Spanish Fork Canyon east of Castilla on Sept. 11 1987. This realignment was just over four years old at the time.
Rio Grande SD9s No. 5310, 5312 and GP9 No. 5942 pull the Midvale Tramp through fields of winter wheat near Welby in outer West Jordan, Utah the morning of Sept. 15, 1984.
A Utah Railway coal empty overtakes a Southern Pacific Roper to Grand Junction manifest freight at Soldier Summit, Utah during Spring Break, 1994.
A Rio Grande local departs Monte Vista, Colorado, with five boxcars and a caboose bound for Alamosa on August 6, 1993. EMD GP40 No. 3135 is a former Penn Central/Conrail locomotive purchased by Rio Grande in 1983.
After shoving the MDVRO 20 to Kyune, Rio Grande SD40T-2s No. 5345, 5400, and 5406 drift through Castle Gate on the return to Helper Yard on Aug. 21, 1999.
A quartet of Rio Grande SD40T-2s and Burlington Northern C30-7s pull D&RGW train No. 252 through Springville, Utah on Feb. 18, 1987.
Rio Grande SD40T-2 No. 5396 leads an Arco, Colorado to Moapa, Nevada coal train through Spanish Fork Canyon near Detour, Utah the afternoon of Aug. 17, 1996.
Rio Grande GP40-2s No. 3102 and 3125 pull the Railblazer, train No. 102 along the 1983 ‘Thistle Line Change’ the evening of July 2, 1987.
Rio Grande SD40T-2s No. 5400 and 5383 have 56 cars as the MDVROX 12 descends the 2% through Gilluly, Utah on April 13, 1999.
While storms brew above the Wasatch Mountains, Rio Grande coal train No. 766 rolls along the Eastward Main Track near Springville on Utah Pioneer Day, 1989. Train No. 766 was a coal empty, running from the Nevada Power Reid Gardner Generating Station in Moapa, Nevada to the Island Creek Coal loading facility at Acco on the CV Spur near Wellington, Utah. Train information provided by Mark W. Hemphill.
Rio Grande SD40T-2s No. 5349 and 5342 are point helpers on a 67-car MDVRO-08 climbing west through Price Canyon near Lynn, Utah on Oct. 9, 2000.
Traveling light engines on June 25, 2004, Union Pacific’s LJP45 “dirt train” local trundles into East Carbon under a spectacular thunderhead building over Utah’s Book Cliffs. Three Rio Grande SD40T-2 Tunnel Motors (5371, 5390 and 5349) serve as power for today’s local, which will pick up empties at the landfill operation at East Carbon and take them back to Helper.
Powered by five four-axle EMD locomotives, a Rio Grande merchandise train traverses the temporarily green hills of the Green River Desert region of Utah, east of Thompson the afternoon of May 26, 1979.
Rio Grande SD40T-2s No. 5390, 5371, and SP AC4400CW No. 376 pull an 80-car MDVRO 03 through the upper horseshoe, east of Gilluly, Utah on Nov. 4, 2000. Behind the power are eight loads of wood chips from Montrose, Colorado.
Rio Grande GP30s No. 3007, 3003, and 3015, appearing more like a train from the 1960s than the 1990s, depart Provo, Utah for Roper Yard on Feb. 5, 1994.
A westbound Rio Grande coal train crosses over Blue Mountain Drive on the approach to Coal Creek Canyon in July 1984. Five EMD SD40T-2 Tunnel Motors (Nos. 5358, 5367, 5402, 5379 and 5413) lead lone UP SD40 No. 3030 on a train of empty UP coal hoppers west to the coal mines.
A trio of EMD F9 series locomotives propel the Rio Grande Zephyr train No. 18 along the Soldier Creek fill at Gilluly, Utah on March 13, 1977.
A trio of Southern Pacific AC4400CWs pull the TASNC under the coal loader at Skyline, Utah on the Pleasant Valley Branch on Sept. 10, 1996. This Kodachrome image was exposed during the last day of independence before the merger with the Union Pacific the following day.
Rio Grande SD40T-2s No. 5345, 5410, and 5372 pull Union Pacific's Denver to Salt Lake City UPS train through Spanish Fork Canyon the afternoon of April 24, 2001.
Rio Grande SD50s No. 5513 and 5502 pull a 65 car ASROM through Riverton, Utah at 8:01 p.m. on June 16, 1994.
A second section of Amtrak's California Zephyr train No. 6 creates a 'snowstorm' in its wake as it glides down Soldier Summit at 65 mph the afternoon of Jan. 24, 1988. This is a truncated version of the 'Pioneer' which arrived in Salt Lake City four hours late. Sadly, there were no dining car accommodations for the passengers.
The Rio Grande Zephyr overtakes a slow moving forest products train at Gilluly, Utah on March 6, 1983.
Rio Grande GP9s No. 5934 and 5942 pull train No. 668 through Payson in rural Utah County on Jan. 10, 1976. A wood pile trestle lifts the rails of Rio Grande's Tintic Branch above Union Pacific's Provo Subdivision, on back-to-back +1.1 and -0.9% grades. The 33 hopper cars will load at United States Steel's Keigley limestone quarry in Genola.