An early morning coal empty rolls west in Barbara's Gulch. This coal train is part of a contract for a few businesses in Texas. It will load at the West Elk Mine on the North Fork Branch and then return east and south to Texas.
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Who would have thought (even two years ago) that coal trains would become something of a rarity on the Moffat? With the sharp decrease in demand for coal, the Moffat is only seeing a couple of coal trains per week. One such example was this West Elk-bound empty. The train will meet an eastbound manifest at Rocky.
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On was on the wrong side of the train (light-wise) to get a great shot of this guy, but thought it was worth adding, regardless. A former CNW AC4400CW assists on this westbound coal empty. Prior to being assimilated by Union Pacific, this unit was CNW 8820.
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The two DPUs on the tail end of this coal empty are passing from sunlight toward shadow amongst a lot of foliage at the west end of Barbara's Gulch. The gulch gets very narrow for the last few hundred feet. Note the bridge to the left. This is the CO-93 overpass. Also, in the distance toward the top of the frame, you can see the wind break hoppers on Big Ten Curve.
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Okay, spotting the first train in this image is pretty easy. But, can you spot the second train in the image? If you look just above the last unit on the manifest, you can see a westbound coal load at Eisele (formerly Clay). The two trains met at Rocky. The eastbound is now approach west Leyden and the westbound is headed for the Tunnel District and points west.
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The eastbound Roper, UT to North Yard, CO manifest (MRONY) take the siding at Leyden. The train will be meeting the westbound California Zephyr, which is running about 30 minutes behind schedule this morning. Four of the seven units on the point were online. The last three units were DIC (Dead In Consist) and were being moved from Grand Junction to Denver.
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UP has been sending a lot of older power to Grand Junction for storage, so it was interesting to see this HLCX GP38-2 coming back to Denver. Perhaps Denver needs a few extra units for switching...
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Another leased unit returns to Denver from Grand Junction. After so many units (including leasers) have been moved from Denver to Grand Junction, it was interesting to see this GP38-2 on its way back. Whatever the reason, I always enjoying seeing one of these blue units.
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SP 355, disguised as UP 6248, brings up the tail end of this eastbound manifest. It is rather impressive that, nearly 20 years after the UP/SP merger, there are still several patched Espee units roaming the rails. Obviously their paint has seen better days, but you cannot completely write off the scarlet and gray quite yet!
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