Photo ID: 112040 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Sagers to Thompson Grand County, UT 142 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Green River (UP) Union Pacific I absolutely love the beauty of the Utah desert. Parts almost look like the surface of the moon, such as these dirt mounds on the opposite side of UP 6401 and UP 8584, working as hard as they can to carry a California-bound coal load up the 1% grade of Thompson Hill. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 112039 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Sagers to Thompson Grand County, UT 134 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Green River (UP) Union Pacific This westbound UP coal train is going less that 20 MPH as it limps along, trying to tackle Thompson Hill. Some bad order units had to be removed from the train in Grand Junction, yet UP still said to send the train west, despite it being rather underpowered. For the astute observer, you might notice that there is in fact a second train in this shot! In fact, a second westbound coal load is visible to the right side of the shot and slightly up, in the shadows! This train is between Elba and Sagers, a few miles east, riding the yellows of this first coal train. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 112037 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Seven Mile Grand County, UT 174 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Cane Creek (UP) Rocky Mountaineer At milepost 21 on the Cane Creek Sub, at a location that is, ironically enough, named Seven Mile, the Rocky Mountaineer's Rockies to the Red Rocks has completed the journey to the Red Rocks. Employees of the Mountaineer have detrained and are gathered for a briefing in advance of the upcoming season, set to start in a couple of weeks. A bus stands by to take the employees to a hotel in Moab for the night. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 112036 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Bartlett Wash Grand County, UT 150 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Cane Creek (UP) Rocky Mountaineer With only a few miles left in its run, the Rocky Mountaineer crosses over Bartlett Wash on the UP Cane Creek Subdivision. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 112035 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed MP 14 Grand County, UT 211 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Cane Creek (UP) Rocky Mountaineer Just before crossing over a greaser, which helps lubricate the tracks and wheel flanges to slow the wear and tear on the rails, the Rocky Mountaineer crosses a cattle guard. The train will pass underneath UT-191 just ahead, right near the Canyonlands Airport. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 112034 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed MP 5 Grand County, UT 192 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Cane Creek (UP) Rocky Mountaineer The engineer on the Rocky Mountaineer "Rockies to the Red Rocks" offers up a friendly wave as the train heads south on the Cane Creek Subdivision, not far off from its final stop of the day. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 112033 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed MP 5 Grand County, UT 164 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Cane Creek (UP) Rocky Mountaineer With the desert mainline now behind it, the eight car Rocky Mountaineer is now headed south on the track warrant controlled Cane Creek Subdivision. The tracks largely parallel UT-191, with lots of traffic headed to or leaving Moab. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 112031 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, March 27, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Sagers to Thompson Grand County, UT 184 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Green River (UP) Rocky Mountaineer Some maintenance of way work at Sagers resulted in the Rocky Mountaineer briefly stopped and then running through the siding. Now back on the main, the GP40-3s are throttling up as the train really bites into the 1% grade on the climb up Thompson Hill, kicking out a little exhaust for their effort. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 111981 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, March 16, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Troublesome (5,570 ft) Grand County, CO 155 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific A single ES44AC brings up the tail end of UP's MNYGJ at Troublesome. Those that have seen a lot of pictures from the Moffat can probably recognize the pretty significant difference in makeup of UP's North Yard / Grand Junction manifests compared to BNSF's Denver / Provo manifests. The UP manifests are primarily composed of covered hoppers, whereas BNSF manifest are primarily composed of tank cars. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 111980 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, March 16, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Troublesome (5,570 ft) Grand County, CO 209 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific As this westbound manifest continues west, the elevation also continues to decrease. Here at Troublesome, most of the snow on the ground has now melted as the overall snowfall has been less and the temperatures are slightly higher. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 111979 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, March 16, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed CP DS097 (East Troublesome) Grand County, CO 147 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific UP's MNYGJ knocks down a clear (green) signal at the east end of Troublesome. This exact location was the scene for a terrible tragedy in the 1950s. The crew on an eastbound Rio Grande manifest missed an Approach (yellow) signal at the west end of Troublesome. The first signal that wasn't green since departing Bond. A westbound Rio Grande manifest was entering the siding here at the east switch for a meet. Because the eastbound did not see the yellow signal, the engineer was not slowing to come to a stop at the red signal here at the east end. By the time the crew realized it and put the train in emergency, it was too late. The eastbound impacted with the westbound, causing a significant derailment. This led to Rio Grande producing its own 22-minute training/safety video about the incident. The video was titled "The Trouble at Troublesome". The invention and implementation of PTC should, in theory, prevent that type of accident from ever happening again. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 111978 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, March 16, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Byers Canyon Grand County, CO 146 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific A single ES44AC brings up the tail end of UP's westbound MNYGJ in the middle of a snowy Byers Canyon. Unlike most of the canyons the Moffat travels through, you can drive through Byers Canyon (across the river from the track) on US-40. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 111977 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, March 16, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Byers Canyon Grand County, CO 192 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific The head water of the Colorado River are mainly ice-covered in the middle of Byers Canyon, just west of Sulphur. This UP manifest is making good time as is rolls down grade through the canyon. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 111976 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, March 16, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Granby to Sulphur (MP 76.2 to MP 84.6) Grand County, CO 168 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific UP 7504 leads the only UP manifest that still runs on the Moffat, the manifest that runs between North Yard in Denver and the Grand Junction Yard. Typically, the westbound train departs North Yard in the darkest hours of the night. However, problems with UP's MPUNY (on the Joint Line) resulted in the power on that train getting to North Yard much later than expected. That power as needed for the MNYGJ (seen here), delaying the departure of the MNYGJ. The result was a great daylight chase on the Moffat. The ski resort you see in the distance in the small resort of Granby Ranch. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 111975 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, March 16, 2025 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Granby to Sulphur (MP 76.2 to MP 84.6) Grand County, CO 187 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific UP's MNYGJ is in one of the few stretches of track on the Moffat where the maximum authorized speed for freight trains is 60 MPH (and for passenger, it is 70 MPH). This is just west of Granby, on a stretch of track with minimal curves. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture.

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