Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad

The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (reporting mark DRGW), often shortened to Rio Grande or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, is a defunct U.S. railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado in 1870; however, served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.

In 1988, the Rio Grande's parent corporation, Rio Grande Industries, purchased Southern Pacific Transportation Company, and as the result of a merger, the larger Southern Pacific Railroad name was chosen for identity. Today, most former D&RGW main lines are owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad; several branch lines are now operated as heritage railways by various companies.

The Rio Grande was the epitome of mountain railroading, with a motto of Through the Rockies, not around them and later Main line through the Rockies, both referring to the Rocky Mountains. The D&RGW operated the highest mainline rail line in the United States, over the 10,240 feet (3,120 m) Tennessee Pass in Colorado, and the famed routes through the Moffat Tunnel and the Royal Gorge. At its height, around 1890, the D&RG had the largest operating narrow gauge railroad network in North America. Known for its independence, the D&RGW operated the last private intercity passenger train in the United States, the Rio Grande Zephyr.

History

Overview

The Denver and Rio Grande Railway (D&RG) was incorporated on October 27, 1870 by General William Jackson Palmer and a board of four directors. It was originally announced that the new 3 ft  (914 mm) gauge railroad would proceed south from Denver and travel an estimated 875 miles (1,408 km) south to El Paso via Pueblo, westward along the Arkansas River, and continue southward through the San Luis Valley of Colorado toward the Rio Grande River.^[1] Closely assisted by his friend and new business partner Dr. William Bell, Palmer's new "Baby Road" laid the first rails out of Denver on July 28, 1871. Narrow gauge was chosen in part because construction and equipment costs would be relatively more affordable when weighed against that of the prevailing standard gauge. Palmer's first hand impressions of the Ffestiniog Railway in Wales bouyed his interest in the narrow gauge concept which would prove to be advantageous while conquering the mountainous regions of the Southwest. Eventually, the route of the D&RG would be amended (including a plan to continue south from Pueblo over Raton Pass) and added to as new opportunities and competition challenged the railroad's expanding goals.^[2]

Feverish, competitive construction plans provoked the 1877–1880 war over right of way with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Both rivals hired gunslingers and bought politicians while courts intervened to bring settlement to the disagreements. One anecdote of the conflict recounts June 1879 when the Santa Fe defended its roundhouse in Pueblo with Dodge City toughs led by Bat Masterson; on that occasion, D&RG treasurer R. F. Weitbrec paid the defenders to leave. In March 1880, a Boston Court granted the AT&SF the rights to Raton Pass, while the D&RG paid an exorbitant $1.4 million for the trackage extending through the Arkansas River's Royal Gorge. The D&RG's possession of this route allowed quick access to the booming mining district of Leadville, Colorado. While this "Treaty of Boston" ^[3] did not exactly favor the purist of original D&RG intentions, the conquering of new mining settlements to the west and the future opportunity to expand into Utah was realized from this settlement

By late 1880, William Bell, had already begun to organize railway construction in Utah that would become the Palmer controlled Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway in mid 1881. The intention of the D&RGW (aka the "Western") was to work eastward from Provo to an eventual link with westward bound D&RG in Colorado. This physical connection was realized near Green River, Utah on March 30, 1883, and by May of that year the D&RG formally leased its Utah subsidiary as previously planned. By mid 1883, financial difficulties due to aggressive growth and expenditures led to a shake up among the D&RG board of directors, and General Palmer resigned as president of the D&RG in August 1883, while retaining that position with the Western. Frederick Lovejoy would soon fill Palmer's vacated seat on the D&RG, the first in a succession of post Palmer presidents that would attempt to direct the railroad through future struggles and successes. Following bitter conflict with the Rio Grande Western during lease disagreements and continued financial struggles, the D&RG went into receivership in July 1884 with court appointed receiver William S. Jackson in control. Eventual foreclosure and sale of the original Denver and Rio Grande Railway resulted within two years and the new Denver and Rio Grande Railroad took formal control of the property and holdings on July 14, 1886 with Jackson appointed as president. General Palmer would continue as president of the Utah line until retirement (due to company re-organization) in 1901.^[4]

Royal Gorge Route

The D&RG built west from Pueblo reaching Cañon City in 1874. The line through the Royal Gorge reached Salida on May 20, 1880 and was pushed to Leadville later that same year. From Salida, the D&RG pushed west over the Continental Divide at the 10,845 feet (3,306 m) Marshall Pass and reached Gunnison on August 6, 1881. From Gunnison the line entered the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River passing the famous Curecanti Needle seen in their famous Scenic Line of the World Herald. The tracks left the increasingly difficult canyon at Cimmaron and passed over Cerro Summit, reaching Montrose on September 8, 1882. From Montrose, a line was laid north through Delta, reaching Grand Junction in March 1883, which completed a narrow gauge transcontinental link with the Rio Grande Western Railway to Salt Lake City, Utah.

The line from Pueblo to Leadville was upgraded in 1887 to three rails to accommodate both narrow gauge and standard gauge operation.

Narrow gauge branch lines were constructed to Crested Butte, Lake City, Ouray and Somerset.

The route over Tennessee Pass was known for steep grades, and it wasn't uncommon to see trains running with midtrain and rear-end helpers. In 1997, a year after the D&RGW/SP merger with Union Pacific, the UP closed the line. Although it has been out of service for fourteen years, the rails are still in usable condition, though the signals have been sabotaged. In 1998, Union Pacifc sold 12 miles (19 km) of the route's track through the Royal Gorge in an effort to preserve the scenic route. Two new corporations, the Canon City & Royal Gorge Railroad (CC&RG) and Rock & Rail, Inc. (R&R), joined together to form Royal Gorge Express, LLC (RGX) to purchase the line. Passenger service on the new Royal Gorge Route Railroad began in May 1999. The Royal Gorge Route Railroad operates trains on their 12-miles of track through the Royal Gorge year-round, from Canon City to Parkdale. The Railroad is a heritage railway. Apart from this stretch of track, and the odd Hi-Rail inspections between Parkdale and Dotsero, the Tennessee Pass subdivision has been out of service.

San Juan Extension

The D&RG also pushed west from Walsenburg, Colorado over Veta Pass (now "Old La Veta Pass") by 1877. At the time the 'Uptop' depot on Veta Pass, rising over 9,500 feet (2,900 m) in elevation, boasted the highest elevation for a narrow gauge railroad. The railroad reached Alamosa by 1878. From Alamosa, a line was pushed south through Antonito eventually reaching Santa Fe, New Mexico (the Chili Line) and west as far as Creede, Colorado. A line containing one of the longest tangent tracks in U.S. railroading (52.82 miles or 85 kilometres) also linked Alamosa with Salida to the north. From Antonito a line was built over 10,015 feet (3,053 m) Cumbres Pass, along the Colorado-New Mexico border, reaching Durango, Colorado in August 1881 and continuing north to the rich mining areas around Silverton in July 1882. A line was also constructed in 1902 as a standard gauge line, perhaps in anticipation of possible standard gauging of the entire line, south from Durango, Colorado to Farmington, New Mexico. Originally hauling mainly agricultural products and serving as a deterrent to the Santa Fe building up from the south, the line was converted to narrow gauge in 1926, and later delivered pipe and other construction materials to the local oil and natural gas industry into the 1960s.

Today, the Walsenburg-Alamosa-Antonito line survives as the standard gauge San Luis and Rio Grande Railroad, with passenger excursion trains service provided by the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad. Two narrow gauge segments survive as steam railroads, the Antonito-Chama line as the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad and Durango-Silverton as the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.

Tennessee Pass

The D&RG built west from Leadville over 10,240 feet (3,120 m) Tennessee Pass in an attempt to reach the mining areas around Aspen, Colorado before its rival railroad in the area, the Colorado Midland, could build a line reaching there. The D&RG built a line through Glenwood Canyon to Glenwood Springs, reaching Aspen in October 1887. The D&RG then joined with the Colorado Midland to build a line from Glenwood Springs connecting with D&RG at Grand Junction. Originally considered a secondary branch route to Grand Junction, the entire route from Leadville to Grand Junction was upgraded to standard gauge in 1890, and the original narrow gauge route via Marshall Pass became a secondary route.

Denver and Rio Grande Western

The original Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway built a narrow gauge line from Ogden, Utah via Soldier Summit, Utah to Grand Junction, Colorado. The railroad became the Rio Grande Western Railway in 1889 as part of a finance plan to upgrade the line from narrow gauge to standard gauge, and built several branch lines in Utah to reach lucrative coal fields. It was the railway which Gustaf Nordenskiöld employed to haul boxcars of relics from the Mesa Verde, Colorado, cliff dwellings, in 1891, en route to the National Museum of Finland. In 1901, the Denver and Rio Grande merged with the Rio Grande Western, consolidating in 1908. However, the railroad was weakened by speculators, who had used the Rio Grande's equity to finance Western Pacific Railroad construction. The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) took over the D&RG during World War I. In 1918 the D&RG fell into receivership after the bankruptcy of Western Pacific. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW or DRGW) was incorporated in 1920, and formally emerged as the new re-organization of the old Denver and Rio Grande Railroad on July 31, 1921.^[5]

Moffat Road

In 1931, the D&RGW acquired the Denver and Salt Lake Western Railroad (a company in name only), a subsidiary of the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad (D&SL) which had acquired the rights to build a 40-mile (64 km) connection between the two railroads. After years of negotiation, the D&RGW gained trackage rights on the D&SL from Denver to the new cutoff. In 1932, the D&RGW began construction of the Dotsero Cutoff east of Glenwood Springs to near Bond on the Colorado River, at a location called Orestod (Dotsero spelled backward). Despite the common misconception that Dotsero is a shortening of "Dot Zero," the station name exists from the construction of the standard gauge line to Glenwood Springs in the 1890s. Construction was completed in 1934, giving Denver a direct transcontinental link to the west. The D&RGW slipped into bankruptcy again in 1935. Emerging in 1947, it merged with the D&SL on March 3, 1947, gaining control of the "Moffat Road" through the Moffat Tunnel and a branch line from Bond to Craig, Colorado.

"Fast Freights" and the California Zephyr, 1950–1983

Finally free from financial problems, the D&RGW now possessed a direct route from Denver to Salt Lake City (the detour south through Pueblo and Tennessee Pass was no longer required for direct service), but a problem still remained: for transcontinental service, the Union Pacific's more northerly line was far less mountainous (and, as a result, several hours faster). The D&RGW's solution was its "fast freight" philosophy, which employed multiple diesel locomotives pulling short, frequent trains. This philosophy helps to explain why the D&RGW, despite its proximity to one of the nation's most productive coal mining regions, retired coal-fueled steam locomotives as quickly as new, replacement diesels could be purchased. By 1956, the D&RGW's standard-gauge steam locomotives had been retired and scrapped. The reason for this was that unlike steam locomotives, diesel locomotives could easily be combined, using the diesels' multiple unit (MU) capabilities, to equip each train with the optimum horsepower which was needed to meet the D&RGW's aggressive schedule.

The D&RGW's sense of its unique geographical challenge found expression in what is arguably the world's most famous passenger train, the California Zephyr, which was jointly operated with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) from Chicago to Denver and the Western Pacific Railroad from Salt Lake City to Oakland, California (with ferry and bus connections to San Francisco). Unable to compete with the Union Pacific's faster, less mountainous route and 39-hour schedules, the California Zephyr offered a more leisurely journey – a "rail cruise" – with ample vistas of the Rockies. Although the California Zephyr ran at full capacity and turned a modest profit from its 1949 inception through the late 1950s, by the mid-1960s the train was profitable only during the late spring, summer, and fall. In 1970, Western Pacific, claiming multi-million dollar losses, dropped out. However, the D&RGW refused to join the national Amtrak system, and continued to operate its share of the Zephyr equipment as the Rio Grande Zephyr between Denver and Salt Lake City until 1983.

Even as the D&RGW exploited the best new standard-gauge technology to compete with other transcontinental carriers, the railroad continued to operate the surviving steam-powered narrow gauge lines, including the famed narrow gauge line between Durango and Silverton, Colorado. Most of the remaining narrow-gauge trackage was abandoned in the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the most scenic routes survived in operation by the D&RGW, until they were sold to tourist railroad operators. The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad assumed operation of the line between Antonito, Colorado and Chama, New Mexico in 1970. The last D&RGW narrow gauge line, from Durango to Silverton, was sold in 1981 to the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, exactly one hundred years after the line went into operation.

Merger with Southern Pacific

In 1988, Rio Grande Industries, the company that controlled the D&RGW under the direction of Philip Anschutz, purchased the Southern Pacific Railroad. The combined company used Southern Pacific's name due to its name recognition among shippers. In time, the Rio Grande's fast freight philosophy gave way to SP's long-established practice of running long, slow trains. A contributing factor was the rising cost of diesel fuel, a trend that set in after the 1973 oil crisis, which gradually undermined the D&RGW's fuel-consuming "fast freight" philosophy. By the early 1990s, the combined Rio Grande/Southern Pacific Railroad had lost much of the competitive advantage that made it attractive to transcontinental shippers, and became largely dependent on hauling the high-quality coal produced in the mine fields of Colorado and Utah.

D&RGW locomotives retained their reporting marks and colors after the merger with Southern Pacific. The one noticeable change was to Southern Pacific's "Bloody Nose" paint scheme - the serif font on the sides of the locomotives was replaced by the Rio Grande's "speed lettering", which was utilized on all SP locomotives built after the merger.

Merger with Union Pacific

On September 11, 1996, Anschutz sold the combined company to the Union Pacific Railroad, partly in response to the earlier merger of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe which formed the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. As the Union Pacific absorbed the D&RGW into its system, signs of the fabled mountain railroad's existence are slowly fading away. D&RGW 5371, the only original D&RGW locomotive in full Rio Grande paint on the Union Pacific, was retired by UP in December, 2008. As previously promised by UP, the D&RGW 5371 was donated to the Utah State Railroad Museum at Ogden's Union Station on August 17, 2009, and will reside in the Eccles Rail Center at the south end of the building. The museum is located at 25th Street and Wall Ave in Ogden, Utah. Many other Rio Grande locomotives still run in service with Union Pacific, but have been "patch-renumbered," with a patch applied over the locomotive's number and the number boards replaced. This method allows the locomotives to be numbered into the Union Pacific's roster but is cheaper than fully repainting the engine into UP Armour Yellow.

Union Pacific recently unveiled UP 1989, an EMD SD70ACe painted in a stylized version of the DRGW color scheme. This unit is one of several SD70ACe locomotives the UP has painted in stylized colors to help preserve the image of the railroads it has merged; the others are Missouri Pacific Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, Chicago and North Western Railway, Southern Pacific Railroad, and Western Pacific Railroad.

Presidents

The following people served as presidents (or the equivalent) of the D&RGW and its predecessors.

• William Jackson Palmer, 1870–1883
• Frederick Lovejoy, 1883–1884
• William S. Jackson, 1884-1887 (receiver, 1884–1886)
• David H. Moffat, 1887–1891
• Edward Turner Jeffery, 1891–1912
• Benjamin Franklin Bush, 1912–1915
• Henry U. Mudge, 1915–1917
• Edward L. Brown, 1917–1918
• Alexander R. Baldwin and Edward L. Brown, 1918-1921 (receivers)
• Joseph H. Young, 1921-1923 (receiver, 1922–1923)
• Thomas H. Beacom 1923-1924 (receiver)
• John S. Pyeatt, 1924–1935
• Wilson McCarthy and Henry Swan, 1935-1947 (trustees)
• Wilson McCarthy, 1947–1956
• Gale B. Aydelott ("Gus"), 1956–1977
• William J. Holtman, 1977-1992

Passenger trains

This is a partial list of D&RGW passenger trains. Westbound trains had odd numbers, while eastbound trains had even numbers.

Other named passenger trains operated by the Rio Grande included the Colorado Eagle (operated in conjunction with the Missouri Pacific Railroad between St. Louis and Denver), Panoramic (between Ogden and Denver), Royal Gorge (between Denver, Pueblo, and Ogden), and the Yampa Valley (between Denver and Craig, Colorado). From 1940 to 2009 the Ski Train connected Denver with Winter Park, Colorado. This started as a D&RGW train but was bought by the Ansco Investment Company in 1988, then re-sold to Canada in 2009.

Note that the San Juan Express earlier was called the Colorado and New Mexico Express, and express passenger service had been offered between Alamosa and Durango since shortly after the line was completed in 1881. The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad now operates scenic trips over this route between Antonito, Colorado and Chama, New Mexico.

The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, which has been operating since 1881, provides scenic day trips from Durango to Silverton.

The largest collection of surviving California Zephyr equipment can be found at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, California, although this museum focuses on the Western Pacific Railroad, rather than the Rio Grande. Several items of DRGW owned Zephyr rolling stock still survive in private hands.

See also

• List of Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad lines
• San Juan Express
• Heber Valley Historic Railroad, formerly D&RGW's Provo Canyon Branch
• D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle
• Narrow gauge railroads in the United States

References

Bibliography

• Armitage, Merle. Operations Santa Fe. 1948. 9-15.
• Athearn, Robert G. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, Rebel of the Rockies. Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, University of Nebraska, 1977. Reprint of Rebel of the Rockies: A History of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962. ISBN 0803258615
• Athearn, Robert G. "Railroad Renaissance In The Rockies," Utah Historical Quarterly, 35: 1, (January, 1957): 1-26.
• Colorado Rail Annual, No. 11. 1981.
• Griffin, James R.. Rio Grande Railroad. 2003. ISBN 076031442X
• Grenard, Ross B.. Rio Grande In Color, Volume 1. 1992. ISBN 1878887114
• Sandrin, James. Rio Grande In Color, Volume 2. 1998. ISBN 1878887947
• Stewart, Paul Logan. The History Of The Denver And Rio Grande Railway, 1871-1881. M. A. Thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder: 1931.
• Thode, Jackson C.. A Century of Passenger Trains...And Then Some.... 1972.

Further reading

• Brayer, Herbert Oliver. William Blackmore: Early Financing of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway 1871–1878. Volume two. Denver: 1949.

External links

• Rio Grande Modeling & Historical Society
• The 1910 Heavyweight D&RG Business Car 101 now the Abraham Lincoln
• Colorado Railroad Museum