Before Anshutz and SP, way before UP - SP merger, the “Q” Denver line was a busy freight route. Lots of this traffic was interchanged with the D&RGW in Denver. What traffic is on the line today? Where does it originate and where does it temrinate? How is track maintenance?
The double track line you speak of diverges at my hometown of Aurora, IL and goes west through Galesburg on to Denver (the other line that diverges at Aurora is known as “the C&I” and goes northwest through Rochelle, LaCrosse and on to Minneapolis. Back to the Denver line which is known here as the “main line” (the dispatchers for this line in Ft. Worth call themselves “mainline dispatcher”). This double track line is kept up to 79 mph standards for Amtrak’s Zephyr and Chief trains along with the local state subsidized Amtrak trains and is smooth as silk. There are a lot of coal trains on this line and some general merchandise and other types of trains but few intermodal as most of these go up the C&I line. Traffic density on this line is moderate for a heavy duty double track line and the C&I always seems busier (perhaps due to it being a heavy duty single track line with long sidings).
Where does the coal come from? Where does the general merchandise go? And if there are any intermodals at all, where do they go? Just to Denver?
Although I’m not 100% certain, I assume the coal comes from the PRB or somewhere south of there and the intermodals go to and from Denver and KC.
Ah yes, yes, with all the thouight of the UP, I had forgotton that BNSF also serves the PRB, and actually BN was first with the idea, so of course there is lots of coal on the Main Line. Probalby far more than making up for the lost transcontinental CB&Q-D&RGW-WP route. thanks for the reminder.
I understand that BNSF has a train that continues over UP ex D&RGW west of Denver to the Bay area. These were trackage rights gained in the UP-SP merger.
Coal also comes out from Western Colorado, The Somerset Branch Line Southeast of Grand Junction, and the Craig Branch Line to the Northwest corner of Colorado. BNSF has track rights over the old Denver Rio Grande Mainline Route, Now Union Pacific through the Moffat Tunnel. All the trains I see here on the Somerset Branch are UP Trains, Motive Power, UP Yellow AC4400 and some Southern Pacific with Speed Letter Logo. ( I miss the old D&RG SD40-2T ) After the Coal Trains get to Denver, I assume that the coal shipments go over different routes to get to the utility plants to make electricity.
Steve
I would assume that the UP originated coal goes almost entirely east on the UP. The only exceptions would be power plants and other coal unloading sites directly served by BNSF or a connecting short line with better or only connections to BNSF rather than UP. One exception would be coal from the Utah RR, which looks like a UP (ex D&RGW) branch but is a separate railroad and might interchange with the BNSF trackage rights train instead of the UP. This would be an interesting change, because in the old days it did interchange (mostly) with the UP in Salt Lake City (having trackage rights over the D&RGW), rather than with the D&RGW!
I was aware of the BNSF trackage rights to California over the old Moffat line and then both the Sp and WP routes to California. But my understanding this is mostly for local business, and Inland corridor via Bend, because the through busness goes via the Transocon. Slightly longer, but far better profile and faster service.
Also I would guess the main line gets some businees over the line north from Denver to Billings and that south to Texas.
Amusing…
What is it that’s amusing you mudchicken?
I think there are 20 to 30 trains daily on Chicago to Denver Mainline.[tup]
That sounds about right. It is interesting to note that it appears the single track C&I line hosts more trains between Minneapolis/St. Paul and Chicago than the “Main Line” hosts between Denver and Chicago (based entirely on my guesstimate).
A downloadable map on the Trains site shows that back in in 2005 more gross tons went over the main line than the C&I toward MSP. More noticeable, west of Omaha, is the diversion of most of the traffic off the CHI-DEN mainline to the Powder River Basin line, leaving only a relative trickle to continue on to Denver.
With traffic getting compressed into relatively narrow time windows because of the meet & pass nature of single track railroads - Single track can SEEM busier than double track as depending on the particular physical characteristics of the territory you can see a 4 or 5 train ‘fleet’ go in one direction to be followed shortly by one or more trains that met the fleet at the next siding beyond your location. By the same token, there can be very long periods of no activity at all.
With double track territories, one generally does not end up with a operating strategy where ‘fleeting’ is required - most trains will continue to move on a ‘as they arrive’ basis - the only exceptions would be where it is necessary to get Premium trains around non-premium trains - in most cases there are many fewer Premium trains than non-premium trains.
When I rode Denver to Chicago and back last month, the line was single track most of the way west of Omaha, but double/two track between Aurora and Omaha…
Another area which originates coal is on the Moffat line from Bond to Craig. This was the original line of the Denver and Salt Lake (David Moffat’s attempt to reach Salt Lake City). From Denver to Bond (or Orestod–the east end of the Dotsero cutoff; the west end of the cutoff is at Dotsero, just east of Glenwood Springs) this is part of the mainline between Denver and Salt Lake City.
I do not recall any bad meets in either direction while on this trip.
I would say that freight traffic varys greatly over the entire Chicago-Denver line. The busiest portion would be out in Nebraska, with the coal off the Powder River Basin. Some of those coal trains go south at Lincoln, heading toward Kansas City and the former Frisco routes through Memphis. I think there are at least four loads and empties each day that go this way–there are probably more. Quite a bit of the traffic moves across Iowa from Omaha toward Burlington, IA. More coal traffic heads south from there, going down toward St. Louis via the K-Line (it goes through Keokuk, IA–hence the name). There are probably three loads and empties daily that run on the K-Line. Once you get to Galesburg, IL you have coal trains heading toward the Ohio River barge terminals in southern Illinois and those going toward Peoria. There you lose another four trains a day, each way. Between Galesburg and the Chicago area you have maybe four to six coal loads and empties each day. So I would say that west of Lincoln you will have upwards of 40 trains a day and the segment across Iowa should see about 30 or so a day.
Even the BNSF Galesburg-Aurora, IL segment can be busy if you hit the traffic right. I’ve been out doing a dawn-to-dusk railfan marathon and had 20 trains on a couple of times, and you should have little trouble seeing 12-15 trains on most days.
Manifest freight traffic moves in segments–I don’t think there is a Chicago-Denver manifest covering the whole route. There are trains to Galesburg from Cicero and BRC’s Clearing Yard. Galesburg builds and receives daily trains to Omaha and Lincoln. I would imagine there is a Lincoln-Denver train to complete the run.
Into the BNSF era (1997) there was a dedicated BN intermodal train that ran the whole route between Cicero and Denver. Westbound #63 departed Cicero in the early evening and Eastbound #60 could usually be found around Galesburg in the early morning. After the Cameron Connection was completed west of Galesburg, these trains went over to
Again, coal from D&RGW former lines probably stays with the UP unless the power plant is served by the BNSF.