Photo ID: 107181 Date Shot Photo By Friday, February 9, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1158 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Amtrak It's an extremely foggy morning as the westbound Zephyr approaches the grade crossing at Plain. You might be able to tell that the ditch lights are oscillating at this point. Considering the limited visibility, the engineer starting blowing the horn well in advance to make sure no cars were on the crossing. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 107165 Date Shot Photo By Monday, February 5, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1213 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Amtrak It is so great that a few of these Budd-built cars have been saved! It's been 35 years since cars like these regularly traversed the Moffat. Here, the Silver Rapids and Silver Solarium head for their home base in California after a weekend visit to the Mile High City. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 107164 Date Shot Photo By Monday, February 5, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1293 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Amtrak All of the cars on the westbound Zephyr are veterans of passengers service. But the last two, even more so! The Silver Solarium (the domed car) celebrates its 70th Birthday here in 2018! As much as I love the CB&Q dome, I sure wish Rio Grande's version...the Silver Sky...could be restored. It is currently for sale (as of this picture) if someone has $25,000 burning a hole in their pocket! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106978 Date Shot Photo By Friday, January 12, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1239 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) CSX, Union Pacific A single CSX ES44AC brings up the tail end of this eastbound coal load at Plain. This unit was the one leading this coal empty west just two days earlier. Since then, the train loaded at the Energy Mine on the Craig Branch. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106977 Date Shot Photo By Friday, January 12, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1146 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) CSX, Union Pacific Looking through a gap in some trees at Plain, we find an eastbound coal load with a CSX ES44AH on the point. The train is ultimately headed for Florida, so the hints of snow on the lead unit and on the coal is not going to hold up for too much longer! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106976 Date Shot Photo By Friday, January 12, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1306 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) BNSF Unfortunately, the morning sky had a huge cloud bank in the east, largely blocking out the sun as this eastbound BNSF manifest crosses the grade crossing at Plain. Can you tell from the paint which of these five units is the oldest? Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106975 Date Shot Photo By Friday, January 12, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1152 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) BNSF An ES44AC leads two EMDs and two more GEs on this eastbound BNSF Provo-Denver at Plain. The high side gondolas on the house track were spotted there two days earlier by a work train. UP still has piles of old ties laying around after the maintenance blitz in September and October of 2017. Looks like they are finally going to get those old ties picked up and disposed of. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106946 Date Shot Photo By Friday, January 5, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1171 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Amtrak This year's Winter Park Express has three Superliners with a bright pink wrap on them! Hopefully the wrap will stand out to motorists that might just see it and decide a trip up to Winter Park by train sounds like a good idea! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106945 Date Shot Photo By Friday, January 5, 2018 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1316 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Amtrak Under partly cloudy skies, the first run of the 2018 Winter Park Express (Amtrak's own take on the Ski Train) heads west on the main at Plain. Unfortunately, Amtrak was unable to get the F40PH "cab" unit that they had last year, meaning the power here will have to run around the train at Fraser each day before returning back east. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106811 Date Shot Photo By Friday, December 8, 2017 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1237 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific Got power? Twelve units glide east down the main at Plain...but why east? Light power like will head west, destined for the Glenwood Springs yard to be used as mid-train swing helpers on coal trains. So why are these units headed east? The answer is because eight of the units are being moved from "dead lines" in Grand Junction to "dead lines" in North Platte, NE. UP has hundreds of units in long term storage in Grand Junction. These eight are being moved...possibly to be sold off at auction. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106724 Date Shot Photo By Tuesday, November 28, 2017 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1159 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) CSX, Union Pacific A pair of CSX GE's (in the newest version of the "Dark Future" paint scheme) lead this eastbound coal train down the siding at Plain. The train will slow to a stop at the east switch as the empty on the main is too long (by a car and a half) to clear the east switch. This was good news for me, as it gave me time to set up for additional shots at Blue Mountain! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106723 Date Shot Photo By Tuesday, November 28, 2017 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1340 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) CSX, Union Pacific For the third time in three months, a coal train runs on the Moffat with CSX power. Seems that there is a contract for a customer east of the Mississippi that uses CSX and UP. But rather than power swapping, the train just runs the distance with CSX power! The train has been appearing every four weeks (or so) since September. It's a little hard to tell, but the ditch lights on CSX 3202 are flashing...an option that CSX has chosen for its ditch lights, but UP and BNSF have not. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106722 Date Shot Photo By Tuesday, November 28, 2017 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1110 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific A westbound empty pulls on the main at Plain toward Rainbow Cut. This is something an iconic and timeless view for me. I remember coming to this spot at Plain many, many times with my dad as a kid and watching Rio Grande trains, both coming and going, from this vantage point. Note the pile of old ties that were replaced as part of the maintenance blitz back in October. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106721 Date Shot Photo By Tuesday, November 28, 2017 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1063 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific There has been a slight uptick in coal trains on the Moffat lately. In fact, this Energy-bound coal empty will be meeting a coal train that loaded at West Elk Mine on the North Fork Branch. This particularly empty is quite long, which is why the dispatcher has him on the main. Even still, it will not be able to clear the east switch at Plain until the load is in the siding at in the clear so the empty can start pulling west. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106720 Date Shot Photo By Tuesday, November 28, 2017 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Plain (6,530 ft) Arvada, CO 1063 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific This westbound coal empty has been sitting here on the main, just east of the grade crossing, for about 45 minutes. The Zephyr was ahead of it and met an eastbound at Rollins. Cliff was plugged with maintenance of way, so there was nowhere else for the empty to go. Now, the eastbound is out of Crescent and DS-80 and told the crew they can pull into the clear. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture.

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