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Would you buy a passenger ticket to use this Route?


trisonic

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Thanks, just to clarify I was NOT intending to post the actual photo in my thread (or pass it off as my own). It would still be a link. If you note the links in both Neil's and Gordon's posts include the source (Rail Pictures AND the Copyright Owner (Ken Kuehne, the photographer).

 

Cheers, Pete.

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  • 8 months later...

Here's some extra info on this:

 

That's the UP North Fork line! It's single track with one passing siding between Grand Junction and Delta, all track warrant control. At Delta there is a branch to Paonia to serve several coal mines and there is a branch to Montrose that serves a few carload industries. Coal trains run to Paonia daily but Montrose is served about once a week with the train featured in the photo. Coal trains run with UP AC4400CWs and former SP AC4400CWs. The local runs with UP GP40-2s, though several years ago it was common to see original Rio Grande GPs. One oddity is the local having a rare ex-SP UP GP40P-2 which was built with a steam generator for use on commuter trains in San Francisco. 

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  • RMweb Gold

Beyond Montrose this line used to connect with 3' gauge to reach Ridgway, connecting there with Rio Grande Southern and the narrow-gauge DRGW from Salida on the Tennessee Pass route. The first part of that route, from Salida to Monarch, was re-gauged as recently as 1956. I read that standard gauge was called Broad Gauge round these parts!

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Looks like they overdid digging out the cutting. This is one of many routes in North America that are all freight but I wonder if the addition of a passenger car on the end would be a paying proposition? Probably the additional paperwork and insurance charges would frighten off the management if it were suggested to them.

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Union Pacific is a large profitable company that could definitely afford to run passenger trains but they certainly don't want to. (UP does maintain a nice fleet of passenger equipment AND a pair -soon to be a trio- of steam locomotives for excursions but these are yearly occurances and only on certain routes) If the North Fork line and its branches were owned by a regional short line railway like the San Luis and Rio Grande on a similar set of lines in the other half of the state, there could definitely be passenger services for tourist purposes. In the North Fork Valley near Paonia, one can see vineyards and wineries on the hillsides above the coal mines. I've always thought it would be fun to run a wine train from Grand Junction. :good:      

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One problem I would see is that Grand Junction and Montrose aren't tourist destinations otherwise. Durango, Silverton, Telluride, and Ouray are well to the south and several hours drive away. I'd say that the most successful excursion operations are in places that are reasonably accessible to large metropolitan areas, with an appeal of their own that's nonetheless compatible with other area destinations. The Napa Valley Wine Train and the Strasburg are very good examples. I don't see the Colorado West Slope as being in the same category. Or you'd have to have something that was attrractive enough to make its own destination. Steamtown, the C&TS, and the Conway Scenic might fit more closely there.  If I had a bundle of capital to spend on a tourist line, i'd probably be looking more closely at other locations, or trying to figure out how I could put together something attractive enough to bring large numbers of people to a whole new place.

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  • RMweb Gold

One problem I would see is that Grand Junction and Montrose aren't tourist destinations otherwise. Durango, Silverton, Telluride, and Ouray are well to the south and several hours drive away. I'd say that the most successful excursion operations are in places that are reasonably accessible to large metropolitan areas, with an appeal of their own that's nonetheless compatible with other area destinations. The Napa Valley Wine Train and the Strasburg are very good examples. I don't see the Colorado West Slope as being in the same category. Or you'd have to have something that was attrractive enough to make its own destination. Steamtown, the C&TS, and the Conway Scenic might fit more closely there.  If I had a bundle of capital to spend on a tourist line, i'd probably be looking more closely at other locations, or trying to figure out how I could put together something attractive enough to bring large numbers of people to a whole new place.

The Heber Creeper, now Heber Valley, cannot be that far away? In the next State, of course, but probably taking the market that does exist.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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