The eastbound Canyon Spirit makes its way across Blue Mountain Drive by the Coal Creek fire station. It is a very pleasant afternoon, despite the overcast skies. Later in the week, the forecast is showing as much as 6-10" of snow might fall!
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The last shot of the day for me came here at Blue Mountain Drive as the Canyon Spirit passes by, headed east toward Denver. This is the sixth season the train has been running over the Moffat now, and, based on their website, it looks like 2026 should be a pretty good season once again.
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A bit of a classic shot at Blue Mountain Drive, a Union Pacific passenger special is quickly headed east. Whether you love or hate Union Pacific, I think you'd have to admit that they do a great job with their passenger equipment. Their passenger trains tends to look very, very good.
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An eastbound BNSF Provo-Denver manifest, whose crew is running short on time, met the Zephyr up at Plain. DS-378 had a great meet setup, and neither train had to come to a stop. Here, the manifest is coming through the S-Curves at Blue Mountain Drive, with a typical three units on the head end.
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The Winter Park Express crosses the grade crossing at Blue Mountain Drive on a morning when the temperature is only 7°F (-14°C). A UP hyrailer, waiting for its turn to set on the tracks, observe the train as the Winter Park Express heads west.
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Finally! A little bit of snow has arrived! This is the first Thursday run of Winter Park Express for this season, with seven Superliners (six coaches and a lounge car). The train is around Blue Mountain in the second snowfall of the 2025-2026 winter season.
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Quite a few local railfans received the news regarding this westbound UP passenger train. As expected, many of them (myself included) were gathered at Blue Mountain Drive for a couple of shots of the afternoon move.
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This UP passenger train is supposedly deadheading westbound to Grand Junction this afternoon. It came south on the Greeley Sub yesterday morning, and stayed overnight at North Yard last night. There is speculation that the train might have something to do with the UP/NS merger, announced on July 29th. But that is entirely speculation.
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UP 6045 is still slowly moving along, thanks to another (of many) slow orders that are encompassing the Moffat this summer. The train is winding through the S-Curves just east of the grade crossing at Blue Mountain Drive.
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Several local railfans, including myself, are gathered at the Blue Mountain Road Crossing, watching the brand new Amtrak Cascades AIRO trainset passing by on its way toward the Transportation Technology Center near Pueblo, CO.
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This spring has been quite a bit cooler in the Denver area than the average area, and it certainly has been a wetter spring than on average. In May, 3.9" of rain fell in Arvada, nearly double the average of 2.2" for the month. The result has been the greening up of the area. The valley here at Blue Mountain Drive looks fantastic and alive as the morning Zephyr heads west.
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Just a matter of minutes before rain started falling, an eastbound manifest crosses Blue Mountain Drive. The train is only about a half mile long, and does not have a rear DPU on this particular day.
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BNSF 6158 comes around the curve from Blue Mountain Drive to turn directly into the rapidly rising sun as it approaches the west end of Eisele (Clay). If you look closely, one of the tank cars to the left is passing by the silver control box for the hotbox detector at MP 22.6.
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The westbound Zephyr is running with an extra Superliner this morning. Specifically, there is a diner catching a ride on the end of the train. Most likely, the car was repaired at the Beech Grove, IN shops and is headed back to the west coast to be put into service.
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As AMTK 77, leading the westbound Zephyr, kicks up some snow with its plow at the grade crossing of Blue Mountain Drive, one of the engineers in the cab offers a friendly wave.
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