At the base of Blue Mountain, the westbound Zephyr makes its way through the S-curves. Has a nice, wintery feel to it, don't you think?
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It's always fun to shoot an eastbound at the Blue Mountain grade crossing as the train winds its way through the S-Curves at the bottom of Coal Creek Canyon. Midtrain swing helpers are usually positioned in just the right spot in the train to be able to capture the first one along with the head end power, such as in this shot.
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A look at the eastbound Zephyr with two heritage units wrapping around the curves at Blue Mountain.
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After a quick turnaround in Emeryville, the Zephyr came back east with AMTK 156 and AMTK 66 on the point again (Phase I and Phase II heritage units, respectfully). The train is coming around the base of Coal Creek Canyon near the detector at MP 22.6.
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Fun Springtime weather in the Rockies resulted in clouds over the train and sun over the Plains. But an all-Heritage consist leads the Zephyr west through the S-Curve at Blue Mountain.
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An eastbound coal load approaches the grade crossing at Blue Mountain in very thick fog. Shooting trains in fog can always generate an interesting effect from the headlights. I thought the blues in this shot gave it a particularly cold feel, which I really liked.
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Although there really isn't any evidence of it here (other than clouds and a semi-wet road), the first snow fall of the 2010-2011 season came about an hour earlier! This coal train loaded at the Energy mine on the Craig branch and is headed for the Drake power plant in Colorado Springs.
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Although they are a little bit dirty, these two flagged C44AC-CTE's look pretty good leading up six other units and a coal empty through the S-Curve at Blue Mountain.
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A pair of US Army tanks heading west on BNSF's Denver to Provo trackage rights train. The tanks are on a Department of Defense (DODX) flat car for the journey.
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BNSF's daily Denver to Provo trackage rights train makes its way through the S-Curve just east of the road crossing at Blue Mountain. The train has an interesting load behind the power - a pair of tanks!
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It's great to see UP 1989 on the point of the MNYRO on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Granted the 1989 could use a little bit of a washing, but it still looks good coming through the S-Curve at Blue Mountain!
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A BNSF manifest headed from Denver to Provo, UT wraps through the S-Curves just east of the grade crossing at Blue Mountain.
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This shot is remarkably similar to one that I snapped a few weeks earlier at the exact same spot. The time of day - almost 8:00pm - limited the options for places to take this shot. After spending a day on the western slope, UP 1989 comes back to Denver on the MRONY-02.
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This is the type of environment that the Rio Grande Heritage unit should be in! Working as a swing helper on an eastbound coal load coming past Blue Mountain in the snow.
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Looking west from near the grade crossing at Blue Mountain shows the mid-train swing helpers on this coal load coming through the curves at the base of Coal Creek Canyon.
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