One of the most uniquely painted locomotives is certainly AMTK 203. It was painted in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Operation Lifesaver. I think the designers did a very good job of using one of the two parts of the cross in the railroad crossing signal to wrap around the base of the nose. Unfortunately, the unit was the trailing unit this morning.
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It is a little difficult to see, but if you look toward the top of this shot, you can see the Denver Skyline still in the light, resting in a relatively high amount of humidity. Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountaineer descends down the roughly 2% grade from Tunnel 1.
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The Zephyr wraps around the bend, heading toward Blue Mountain Drive. A pair of Patrick Henry cars, the Evelyn Henry and Warren Henry, are on the tail end. These cars were both built for Union Pacific in the 1950s.
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The scenery in the Denver area is as green as I can ever remember this May and June, thanks to a wetter than normal spring. The eastbound Zephyr makes is way east of Blue Mountain Road under partly cloudy skies.
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Just west of Tunnel 1, the morning Zephyr is running about 45 minutes late. You can see Canyon Pines Drive, the road that accesses the new Arvada neighborhood of Canyon Pines. The neighborhood will have custom home builds, but several years into the project, no houses have actually popped up just yet.
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This oil train is running on UP rails, with a Norfolk Southern leader, and a BNSF crew! Quite the interesting mix. The yellow hand rails on the lead unit really pop in the scene as the train curves toward Tunnel 1.
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A final shot of the eastbound Rocky Mountaineer as the train proceeds beyond Blue Mountain Drive and toward the west end of Eisele. Unfortunately, this would be the final shot taken on this day, as my drone developed an error with the vision sensors, preventing it from taking off again. Fortunately, by the end of the day, the drone was already in the care of UPS, off to the repair shop.
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I really love it when the Rocky Mountaineer GP40-3s are running on the train. It immediately takes me back several decades to when the Moffat was run by Rio Grande and spartan cab EMDs. Not only do they look great coming by Blue Mountain Drive here, but the sound of the classic EMD prime movers is really great as well.
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RMRX 8021 and RMRX 8020 lead the Rocky Mountaineer out of Plain, rolling east toward the west portal of Tunnel 1. The train is running right on time, having departed from Glenwood Springs earlier this morning.
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The westbound Rocky Mountaineer is using the SD40M-2 and SD18M, in addition to one of the GP40-3s, for power this morning. The SD18M and GP40-3 kick up quite a bit of exhaust as the train accelerates.
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It feels uncommon to catch a meet between two UP trains on the Moffat, simply because UP has run few trains in the last few years. However, as oil trains are increasing on the Moffat, it is becoming easier to catch a meet between UP trains. Such is the case on this afternoon, as a westbound oil empty holds in the siding at Eisele (Clay) as a loaded oil train rolls by.
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After the eastbound Zephyr ran around this UP oil train at Plain, it is now the oil trains turn to continue east. The crew will tie the train down on Bypass 1 between C&S and Broadway.
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The eastbound Zephyr is running right on time as it approaches the west portal of Tunnel 1. The train just had to run through the siding at Plain to run around a loaded UP oil train that was holding on the main.
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AMTK 203, which honors 50 years of Operation Lifesaver, is leading the westbound Zephyr this morning along with AMTK 140. Low hanging clouds and snowy trees make it feel more like December rather than two days before the start of April!
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A pair of P42DCs lead the Winter Park Express out of Eisele (Clay). After running with only five coaches for a couple of trips, a sixth coach has been added back on. It was added at the same time AMTK 45 replaced AMTK 29 on the train. Note that you can just barely see the mainline west of Rocky, climbing Big Ten to the left.
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