Photo ID: 106262 Date Shot Photo By Wednesday, October 19, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1334 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific UP's thrice-weekly MRONY (Roper, UT to North Yard, CO manifest) glides east out of Leyden on the approach to the Simms Street grade crossing. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106234 Date Shot Photo By Thursday, October 6, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1274 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific On a rather gloomy, overcast morning, an eastbound manifest approaches the grade crossing at Simms Street. This trains is the "P-Burg Local", bringing cars from the Craig Branch. There are a few non-coal customers on the line, particularly around Craig, CO. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106194 Date Shot Photo By Friday, September 23, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1344 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) BNSF You couldn't ask for better light than this right here! It is a beautiful morning in the Denver-area here at the start of fall. A trio of GEs (including an ES44C4 on the point) glide east on the point of a Provo, UT to Lincoln, NE manifest. The train is approaching the Simms Street grade crossing, one of several "quiet zone" crossing that are now in the city of Arvada. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106193 Date Shot Photo By Friday, September 23, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1718 (1 Comment Posted) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) BNSF The front range of the Colorado Rockies stands tall in the distance, offering a nice backdrop for BNSF's eastbound Provo, UT to Lincoln, NE manifest. The train would continue to Utah Junction, where it waited on the North Yard Siding for Amtrak, before continuing into the yard. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106082 Date Shot Photo By Friday, June 10, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1240 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Herzog, Union Pacific A pair of units bring up the tail end of a colorful Herzog ballast train through Arvada. The train unloaded on portions of the former Rio Grande and is currently headed toward Cheyenne. From there, it will likely head west to the quarry and reload. When loaded, ballast trains are (not surprisingly) very heavy and, as a result, frequently run with DPUs. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106081 Date Shot Photo By Friday, June 10, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1248 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Herzog Ballast cars, naturally, have large doors on the bottom for dumping the ballast along the right-of-way. Rather than having to operate the doors manually, the doors on each car have a motor, which is powered by a battery. Those batteries are charged by these solar panels. The panels can rotate in order to collect the maximum amount of sunlight possible. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106080 Date Shot Photo By Friday, June 10, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1260 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Herzog Some very new (and colorful) Herzog ballast cars rolls eastbound on the Moffat near Simms Street. Herzog is a leading company in track construction and maintenance. The company owns these cars and leases them to railroads who, in turn, use them to dump ballast. It's really nice having such a colorful scheme on these new cars. They definitely stand out! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106079 Date Shot Photo By Friday, June 10, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1379 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific A brand new (Tier-4 compliant) ET44AC leads an eastbound ballast train toward the Simms Street grade crossing on a beautiful June morning. This train had been stuck on the west slope at Sulphur for two days. It was originally going to be called on Wednesday. However, for reasons unknown to me, a crew didn't actually get to the train until today (Friday). Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 106078 Date Shot Photo By Friday, June 10, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1370 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific One of the most colorful trains I think I've seen. This is a work train...more specifically, a ballast train. The cars are owned by Herzog and UP used them to dump ballast on portions of the Rio Grande. Despite the fall off in traffic, UP seems to be keeping up maintenance! You may notice the solar panels on the cars. Those are used to power the doors that open in order to dump the ballast. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 105854 Date Shot Photo By Monday, February 29, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1247 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific A former Espee AC400CW brings up the tail end of an eastbound coal load, crossing over Simms Street in Arvada. After cutting out its swing helpers, the train will continue east on the KP toward Kansas and points west. This will be the first coal train on the KP in over a week! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 105853 Date Shot Photo By Monday, February 29, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1279 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific Swing helpers on the few-remaining coal trains on the Moffat, such as the ones seen here, are the only thing keeping hostlers on duty at North Yard for UP. Hostlers move power around the yard as needed, whether it be to set up power for a train or cutting out swing helpers from a coal train. In many other places on UP's system, hostlers have been eliminated and the trains crew has moved their own power. However, UP does not want the crew on the head end of the coal train to have to cut out mid-train swing helpers. So for now, the hostlers look to be safe. However, they have been reduced by over 50% at North Yard as a result of the downturn in coal traffic. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 105852 Date Shot Photo By Monday, February 29, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1260 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific Just three days prior to this picture, coal mine operator Bowie announced that it was idling Bowie #2 (on the North Fork Branch) indefinitely due to the downturn in the coal market. In 2013, the mine employed over 300 miners. 150 of those were laid off when the mine lost a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Now, at least half of the remaining miners will be laid off as well. This least the West Elk Mine as the sole operating mine on the North Fork Branc1 Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 105851 Date Shot Photo By Monday, February 29, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1439 (2 Comments Posted) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific This coal train loaded on the North Fork branch in western Colorado and will be the first coal train to head east on the KP in over a week. It seems like the bottom dropped out of coal nearly overnight! Once a staple of the Moffat, coal trains are now something a rarity, worth finding and shooting. With coal trains becoming somewhat rare on the Moffat, it seems ironic that I would get some pictures of one on Leap Day! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 105834 Date Shot Photo By Wednesday, February 17, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1452 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific Its work for the day complete, the West Local rolls east out of Leyden on the approach to the Simms Street grade crossing. The local made a very rare move on this day, running all the way up to East Portal to drop off a single tank car. The train had no work on the Rocky Spur and, thus, no cars to bring back to town. If you look at the nose on UP 1349, you'll notice round plates on either side of the nose and a rectangle plate in the middle at the top. This is where the unit's class lights and Mars light were once located when the unit was DRGW 3128! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 105754 Date Shot Photo By Wednesday, January 27, 2016 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Simms Street Arvada, CO 1302 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Moffat Tunnel (UP) Union Pacific A trio of mid-train swing helpers assist this eastbound Public Service coal train as it crosses the Simms Street grade crossing in Arvada. So vandals performed quite a number on the third unit, completely wiping out the flag on the engineer's side of the C44AC-CTE. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture.

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