It is right around 8:30am and the Zephyr is running right on time this morning as it heads west out of Leyden in the early sunlight. The Zephyr has its standard trio of coaches, sightseer lounge, diner and pair of sleepers.
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Despite the fantastic sunshine right now, those dark looking clouds indicate the future of the weather in the metro area! The first snow fall of the 2010-2011 winter season in Denver would come later in the afternoon. The westbound Zephyr will get to the snow a lot sooner though as it journeys west.
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At the east switch of Rocky, the Roper to Denver manifest heads east toward Denver. The weather condition were deteriorating rapidly with the first few snow flakes just starting to fall. The Denver/Roper trains lately are led by the kind of AC power you see on most coal trains. It was nice to see some SD70M's on the train and an SD9043MAC on the point to boot!
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What is this!? Two SD70M's on a coal train in 2010? That was the first thought I had when I saw this train coming. Then, I realized that it is in fact a loaded ballast train headed for Grand Junction.
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Ballast trains can always be something of a challenge to get west over the Moffat. They typically weigh somewhere around 7,000 tons and that is all uphill between Denver and the Moffat Tunnel. Here, a ballast train has a clear signal at the east switch of Rocky.
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Here is something rather interesting. As UP 4158 passed by me, I noticed that it is labeled as an SD70M-2 on the cab. I have no clue why as it was delivered, at least, as an SD70M. The trucks do look fairly new and perhaps that explains it, but I'm not sure.
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Although it is only 3,000 feet long, this train still weighs close to 7,000 tons. Rocks (ballast) is just about the heaviest thing trains transport. Gone are the days when you'd find scoria in these ballast cars. UP gets its ballast from quarries in Wyoming.
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Although there really isn't any evidence of it here (other than clouds and a semi-wet road), the first snow fall of the 2010-2011 season came about an hour earlier! This coal train loaded at the Energy mine on the Craig branch and is headed for the Drake power plant in Colorado Springs.
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