The westbound Zephyr lost about two hours at various points across the plains between Chicago and Denver. With a little bit of time made up, the Zephyr is just over 90 minutes late as it blasts west on the main at Leyden on a beautiful November morning.
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Just west of the west portal of Tunnel 1, the second snow fall of the 2023-2024 winter season still largely covers the ground as the westbound Zephyr pulls west. The Zephyr is a little over an hour late this morning.
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AMTK 134 and AMTK 168 lead the westbound Zephyr on the pull toward Tunnel 1 up from the case of Coal Creek Canyon. Construction on the new Canyon Pines subdivision continues in the background. No groundbreaking on any houses has started. Yet.
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In 2018, it was common to find eight Superliners on the Zephyr through the winter months. Post-COVID, an a coach and a sleeper have both been dropped from the train, making six Superliners the current winter standard. P42DCs still reign on the Zephyr, despite Amtrak taking receipt on 18 ALC-42s.
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Fall colors along the front range are entirely complete here at the start of November. Most trees have lost their leaves entirely, although some still have some colorless leaves clinging on, such as this tree near the west end of Eisele (Clay). The westbound Zephyr rolls through the scene on the main.
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An inch or two of snow fell throughout the day yesterday. This morning, the westbound Zephyr passes through the semi snow covered scene, climbing up the east side of Big Ten Loop.
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The morning westbound Zephyr is running about 1 hour and 15 minutes behind schedule as it leaves the west end of Rocky. A storm came through yesterday that left a couple inches of snow in the foothills.
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One of the 19 "25th Anniversary" units BNSF created is the 4th unit on a westbound coal empty sitting in the siding at Rocky. These units are the closest (to date) that BNSF has come to having a heritage unit.
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A guest from the north is spending some time with BNSF. Actually, with the recent merger with KCS, CP is no longer a northern railroad. CPKC now covers Canada, the central United States, and Mexico! This paint scheme will be fading in to history in the coming years.
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15 years ago, coal trains on the Moffat were ubiquitous and as common as leaves on a tree. However, today, they have become intermittent at best. Even more unusual is an empty westbound BNSF coal train. However, here one sits in the siding in the late morning on a somewhat windy Thursday. The train will be sitting for a few hours to wait for a maintenance window to close ahead in the Tunnel District.
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A quartet of orange BNSF units are cut in half by a red Canadian Pacific putting in some power sharing miles on BNSF. The train is stopped on the siding at Rocky, waiting for a maintenance window ahead to clear up.
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Five units lead a westbound BNSF coal empty, wrapped through the curves at Little Ten Curve near West Rocky. The train is currently stopped on the siding as there is maintenance ahead in the Tunnel District. The train will have to sit here for a few hours, waiting for the maintenance window to be over.
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Up the hillside from Eisele (Clay), a herd of elk gathers amongst the foliage and small amount of snow that has not yet melted. Several of the elk take an interest in the buzzing noise generated by the drone taking their picture.
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Shortly after the westbound Zephyr passed by, a herd of elk decided it was time to cross the tracks and head up the hillside. Fortunately this decision was made after Amtrak passed! No other trains were around, so the three dozen or so elk safely crossed the rails.
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As the westbound Zephyr glides along the main track at Eisele (Clay), direct your attention up the mountain to the top of the image. Several folks have some great homes at the top of Blue Mountain Road. Pretty fantastic view out over the plains, as well as the tracks.
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