Just south of Longmont, BNSF's daily HDENLAU heads north near Ogallala Road. On a clear day, the Front Range of the Rockies would be visible in the distance.
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The HDENLAU has a rather colorful consist on this morning as it passes through Boulder County Open Space about two miles east of the Valmont Power Plant. The second unit is a Canadian National SD50F. The third unit is a Norfolk Southern C40-9W.
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On a rather crummy weather morning, BNSF's daily HDENLAU (Denver, CO to Laurel, MT) freight has just left Denver and is approaching the 80th Avenue grade crossing in Westminster.
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After dropping off the loaded coal hoppers on the track to the right, the power for the Valmont coal train runs light back toward the mainline. The power will not actually enter the mainline, but will instead tie down on a stub track and the crew will return to Denver.
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After placing half its train at the Valmont power plant, the second half of the train must now be placed on the storage track along the Stazio ball fields.
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The trains destination is finally in sight! The Xcel Energy owned power plant at Valmont is coal fired. The hoppers will be spotted near the plant, and a switcher at the plant will position the hoppers to be dumped over the next several days.
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The clouds have set in on this Saturday morning as the Valmont coal load passes underneath the Northwest Parkway in Broomfield. The train is climbing is relatively steep grade, working toward Louisville.
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For a few months, the Valmont coal train loaded exclusively on BNSF in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. That has changed, however, as the train is now loading in western Colorado (on UP) once again. As a result, the power on the Front Range Sub is once again mixed between BNSF and UP as the Valmont train wraps around Church Ranch Lake.
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After a wonderful three day trip to Utah and Wyoming, it was time for the trip to come to a close. A wonderful sunset was a great way to end the day and the trip!
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A Utah Railway crew works in the yard at Provo to switch around BNSF power...power that will be used on a Provo to Denver manifest the following day. BNSF 5077 will be the leader on the train.
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The rather famous rock known as Castle Gate stands tall in the background as a BNSF manifest wraps through Price River Canyon on Main 2, headed east. Soon, the train will be running across the extremely hot Utah Desert toward Colorado.
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Bathed in beautiful morning light, a BNSF manifest (with a Warbonnet in the consist!) follows the Price River down Soldier Summit. The train is just 10 miles away from Helper, UT.
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The center siding of Kyune has a couple of fantastic S-Curves that can been see quite well from the shoulder of US-6 high above. Here, a BNSF manifest heads east on Main 2 through one such curve.
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About seven miles east of the summit of Soldier Summit, an eastbound BNSF manifest (which left Provo earlier in the day) descends down the relatively gentle 0.64% grade.
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Less than five minutes before the sun peaks over the Book Cliffs to the east, BNSF's Denver, CO to Provo, UT manifest has a clear signal at the east switch of Solitude. This is the first train to run over these tracks since a coal empty, seven hours earlier! The desert doesn't get much action these days.
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