A bit of snow remains on the ground as a westbound BNSF manifest charges west out of Leyden toward a clear intermediate signal. With a little luck, the train will make it to Grand Junction with a single crew.
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An ES44C4 and two C44-9Ws, both still in Heritage 2 paint, lead a westbound Denver-Provo manifest west of Leyden. The train held the main to wait for its counterpart, which took the siding and tied down.
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An aerial shot of a westbound BNSF Denver-Provo manifest coming west out of Leyden. The body of water in the immediate background is Welton Reservoir. The body of water further back is Stanley Lake. This general area of Arvada has been exploding in the last decade, and more development is likely to come.
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After a morning of mostly overcast skies, the clouds gave way as BNSF's Provo-Denver departed East Rocky. The sunlight nicely lit up the two DPUs brining up the rear of the train. The train is rolling through Barbara's Gulch, heading for the siding at Leyden.
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An ES44C4 leads an eastbound BNSF manifest - the Provo to Denver - out of Rocky and through the narrow west end of Barbara's Gulch. The train will meet its counterpart at Leyden. It will take the siding and tie down at Leyden. The yard currently has no room for the train, so it'll be held out for awhile.
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An ET44C4 and an ES44AC bring up the tail end of BNSF's Provo-Denver manifest. This angle, just east of the bridge over CO-72 at Coal Creek, really exemplifies the S-Curves through Blue Mountain.
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A BNSF Provo-Denver manifest descends down from Tunnel One at the base of Coal Creek Canyon, crossing over CO-72. As is quite common for BNSF manifests on the Moffat, roughly half of the train consisted of tank cars.
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A single DPU bring up the tail end of a westbound work train. The train includes two bulldozers in the last two gondolas. Whatever the rock and boulders will be used for, presumably the bulldozers will used to do some of the work.
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This westbound UP work train has 56 loaded gondolas. They included a mix of large boulders, large boulders in direct, or sand. The train is climbing up toward Tunnel One from the base of Coal Creek Canyon.
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A trio of UP units lead a loaded rock train through the S-Curves at the base of Coal Creek Canyon. A four unit is DPU'd on the tail end of the train. The train would meet an eastbound BNSF manifest at Plain.
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A westbound UP rock train headed west out of Denver. The train, interestingly, is headed for Steamboat Springs on the Craig Branch. The train has 56 loaded gondolas on the trip west.
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One of Amtrak's Phase III Heritage Units, AMTK 822, leads the westbound Zephyr on the main at Plain. The train is running about 2 1/2 hour late this morning. Plenty of snow remains on the ground from several decent storms that have hit in November and early December.
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A pair of GEs, facing the "wrong way", bring up the tail end of a loaded oil train east at the west switch of Leyden. The train met Amtrak at Eisele (Clay) and now has clear signals the rest of the way in to the yard.
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They tend to be few and far between these days, but every once in awhile you can still luck out and find an oil train on the Moffat! Such was the case on this morning just west of Leyden, as a loaded BNSF oil train rolls east in great morning sunlight.
UP 4014 backs down the North Yard Siding and underneath the signal bridge at Pecos Street. A brakeman is protecting the shove back in to the North Yard Storage Yard. The Big Boy will spend the night on the track knows as "Pig 2". This is a reference to many years ago when intermodal ran over the Moffat and was loaded and unloaded there.
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