On the busiest travel day of the year, the day before Thanksgiving, the westbound Zephyr heads west through Barbara's Gulch. Interestingly, the Zephyr is running without a lounge car this morning, instead running with a pair of dining cars.
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Along the shore of the Colorado River, the westbound California Zephyr rolls by an eastbound coal load on the 11,750-foot west siding of Bond. The coal load has a pair of Canadian National units as rear DPUs. You couldn't ask for a better mid-November day.
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The westbound Zephyr, running about 35 minutes late, just passed by a westbound BNSF manifest at Yarmony. The Zephyr will meet its counterpart a few miles ahead at the siding at Bond. It will also meet an eastbound UP coal load, waiting in the east siding at Bond.
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The Denver-Provo is stopped in the siding at Yarmony to allow the westbound Zephyr, running about 35 minutes late, to overtake it on the mainline. This area around Yarmony is simply beautiful part of the Moffat, the Colorado River snaking in and out of small islands. The Denver-Provo will wait at Yarmony for the eastbound Zephyr, current on the siding at Bond.
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The second of two diners on the morning Zephyr roll by as the train heads west on Main 3 toward C&S Jct. Note the numerous piles of ties lining Main 3, waiting to be installed by a tie gang that is currently working west of Leyden.
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UP's MGRNY sits on Bypass 2, waiting patiently for its turn to make a reverse move into North Yard. Meanwhile, the morning Zephyr passes by on Main 3, the engineer give a wave out the front windshield.
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If you look close, you might notice that there is something a little different about this westbound Zephyr compared to most that head west out of Denver. See it? Unfortunately, for the passengers on the train, there is no Sightseer Lounge car on the train. Instead, the train departed with two dining cars, the second acting as the lounge car for the trip.
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AMTK 204 is one of the more recent repaints for Amtrak, going from the Phase 5 scheme to the Phase 7 scheme. It is second out this morning.
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A pair of P42s, elephant style, lead the Zephyr west on the siding at Plain. You can see the train is meeting an eastbound BNSF oil train. the oil train just got a green signal and is departing eastbound.
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The westbound Zephyr is on the main at Plain, splitting a BNSF oil train on the main and a lot of maintenance equipment in the house track at Plain. The equipment is part of a significant maintenance project that UP is currently in the midst of undertaking. You can even see a lot of fresh ballast on the tracks here at Plain.
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A lot of fresh ballast has been laid here at Plain as the westbound Zephyr enters the siding to meet an eastbound BNSF oil train. Note that the engineer on the Zephyr has dimmed the headlight for the meet.
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The westbound Zephyr rolls through the siding at Eisele (Clay). An eastbound BNSF oil train was originally going to be waiting for the Zephyr on the main. However, the oil train ended up holding the main at Plain to wait on the Zephyr there.
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A typical pair of Amtrak P42DCs leads the morning Zephyr across the grade crossing at 66th Avenue in Arvada.
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In the 1990s, Amtrak developed a variation on its Phase 3 paint scheme that it applied to the its fleet of GE B32-8BWH. The design and colors led railfans to adopt the nickname "Pepsi Can" for the scheme. Amtrak has applied a heritage version of the scheme on P42DC #160, leading the train toward Tunnel 1 this morning.
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The morning Zephyr passes by a little red tractor as it also passes by the hotbox detector at MP 22.6, just west of Blue Mountain Drive. Amtrak's "Pepsi Can" heritage unit is leading the train this morning.
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