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Rockies Rail Tour
(Note: Clicking on any image in this travelogue will bring up a full screen version of the image.)
Wednesday, July 12: Denver to Glenwood Springs
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We were up at 6:00 to be picked up by John Licht at 6:30. John was probably up at 5:30 to make that meeting. Talk about services above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks again, John for making our lives easier. We had to check in at Union Station in Denver at 7:15..
Union Station
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Photo 157: John Licht gets an enormous dollop of thanks from me. He paved the way for me in Denver, served as my chauffeur, and saved me a passel of money and bother. .
Photos 158 & 159: Union Station is right impressive. As the placard says, the original structure was built in the railroads' heyday in 1881 In 2014, it was renovated, maintaining the original facade and interior, but updating the platforms and mechanicals. It maintains the majesty of the great stations and termini of that era, but scrubbed, polished, re-pointed, and sandblasted to as-new condition. There is that same dichotomy one feels when touring the Washington Cathedral, newly built using ancient techniques. All those corners that should be rounded, and all that masonry that should be darkened with the passage of centuries are bright and crisp and smiling. It's a rare experience.
Photo 160: The interior of the station has that same mix of classic design, but with modern lighting, heating, and air conditioning.
Photos 161 & 162: The faithfulness of the station renovation to its original design does not extend to the platforms where one boards the train. There, the designers chose to follow the swooping modern design reminiscent of Denver's airport..
Photo 163: The 105th Meridian happens to pass smack through Union Station. It is represented by a stainless steel strip imbedded in the pavement. It means that Denver is precisely 7 hours earlier than Greenwich, England (The zero Meridian) siderially as well as according to our artificially defined time zones. Also, by coincidence, Denver's streets, and consequently its rail lines, were laid out parallel to the South Platte River, which runs at an almost precise 45° angle to the cardinal North-South end east-West compass points, hence the apparent 45° angle to the paving blocks..
One aspect of Rocky Mountaineer I was not happy with: their communications with us prior to the trip were confusing and conflicting, at least on this trip. I got several versions of things I had to do in order to register and get tickets and boarding passes. Some of those involved going to the station prior to the departure date. I eventually called the agent who sold me the package, who told me, "Just show up at the station at 7:15 on the morning of the trip. (9:00 departure) Fortunately he was right. We arrived before the ticket agent and explored the gorgeous Union Station for a while until she showed up and set up her booth. We were the first to be processed. They took all our luggage except for carry-on.
The majority of the passengers had stayed the previous night at the very fancy (and very pricey) Crawford Hotel, which is actually an adjunct to the Union Station itself. They started filtering in. We had eaten no breakfast, as it was to be served on the train, and were getting a might hungry. But we held off. Eventually we were called to board the train.
Denver to the Continental Divide
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 168. Neal |
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We walked out onto the platform to catch our first sight of the rolling stock (Photo 164) we were to inhabit for the next 2 days. There were two diesel engines, a separate generator car for electrical power on the train, and about a dozen passenger cars. The blue cars with the Nike-like white swoosh brought back fond memories of the Rocky Mountaineer tour of the Canadian Rockies we took in 2012. Alas, the specially built double-decker cars we rode back then, with the all glass roof on the upper level, and the dining car on the lower level were not available for this trip. They would not fit through the tunnels on this line. The cars we did ride this time (Photo 165) were by no means uncomfortable, and they did have upper corner windows that gave a good view upwards. Instead of dining in the lower level with table seating and linen tablecloths, meal service in these cars was more like that in an airplane with fold-down tables from the back of the seats in front. The seats, however, were large and comfy with plenty of foot room, worthy of first class seating in any airliner. There were also two lounge cars (Photos 166 & 167) with seats laid out facing each other where parties could gather and be sociable. Those cars were almost or completely empty every time I visited.
The staff were all very good, both in terms of meeting our physical needs and entertaining and enlightening us with information on what we encountered along the way. In our car, the we had Neal (Photo 168) and Teresa (Photo 169), a married couple who have found the ideal working situation as rail tour hosts. My one complaint with them was that they would pass along railroad "traditions" that seemed so artificial to the point of being manufactured whole cloth by the company. They made a big deal of couples taking the opportunity of kissing when the train went through a tunnel. (As if there were no lights inside the car.) Evan (Photo 170) was their boss, in the position of Passenger Services Manager", and he would take care of infrequently-asked questions and special requests from the passengers above and beyond the standard operating procedures. In that, he was very helpful.
We headed west out of the station, accelerating with imperceptible smoothness to a moderate speed that seemed about 45 MPH. We never did go very fast on the entire journey. Maybe 55 or 60 at most. That's OK. The idea was not to get there; it was to be there. We left Denver proper and headed out through was passed for suburban sprawl out west (Photos 171 & 172). For those readers who do not get the "Little Boxes" reference in Photo 172, it refers to a Malvina Reynolds song, which goes something like:
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same
There's a red one, and a green one,
And a blue one, and a yellow one
And they all are made of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
Breakfast was served. It was better than your typical airline breakfast, with some attempt at being fancier than an egg McMuffin by the inclusion of fruit and freshly baked cinnamon rolls, but the eggs were still cold by the time they got to me. I don't fault them. They do pretty well for the circumstances with which they have to deal.
As we approached the foothills of the Rockies, the ground began to rise at a slope we would normally think of as being rather gentle, and easily surmounted by automobile. However the steel-on-steel contact between the rails and the driving wheels would not generate enough friction to pull the cars without wheel-slip if they tried to head directly up that slope. Consequently, the track was laid out in a big "S"- curve to climb the rise over a much greater length of track, thereby keeping the grade below 2%. That was entertaining, because one could see the train around the curve ahead looking out the side windows (Photos 173 & 174). Into the foothills themselves, the right-of-way was cut into the side of the mountain, affording views of some pretty impressive rock formations little more than an arm's reach out the window (if the window was openable. Photos 177 & 178). We were doing some serious climbing as the rails joined Clear Creek, which had carved a negotiable path up the mountain. We traversed 27 tunnels, some as short as 40 or 50 feet, some maybe a mile or longer where we were repeatedly urged by Teresa to be naughty. It pretty quickly got both old and adolescent.
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At one point on our climb, I got out of my regular seat, and wandered into one of the lounge cars. I found that I had the entire car to myself. To my delight, in that car, the sound system was playing classical music (You can occasionally hear it very faintly in the audio of the above video. Again, the chattering noise on the video is from the auto-focus on the camera making continuous adjustments.) at low volume instead of the country and pop stuff they played in the regular cars. I took my shoes off, stretched out on a seat with my feet on the seat opposite, and opened an audio book on my smart phone that played through my hearing aids by bluetooth. (No need to set your phone to airplane mode on a train.) Then the train slowed and came to a halt. Over the PA, they announced that we were stopped about a quarter mile before entering a tunnel, waiting for an oncoming freight train to come through. The tunnels were single-track, dug manually with steam drills and dynamite long before tunnel boring machines were invented. The freight train was to take a branching track that can be seen in the distance in the above video, and then we would be able to proceed. The oncoming freight was late, and we must waited there for a half hour or more.
Normally, that would have been annoying, but I didn't care. As I sat alone, with the music playing gently behind my recorded book, and the grass outside waving in the wind, I was overcome with a feeling of such peace that I could have just stayed there until I finished the book.
When we had climbed from Denver's 5,200 feet to 9,200, we reached the mouth of the Moffat Tunnel (Photo 180). At 6.2 miles it's the longest tunnel on the line, and goes under the Continental Divide, the highest ridge on the continent. A raindrop falling east of the Divide will eventually wind up in the Atlantic Ocean, while one falling west of the Divide will end up in the Pacific. When it was first built, the rail line had climbed further up to Rollin's Pass, some 2,000 feet higher by means of switchbacks, and gradients as high as 4%. But that path required multiple engines to surmount, occasionally resulted in runaway trains on the way down, and was often impassible in winter. So in the early 20s, it was resolved to build a tunnel to bypass that expensive and dangerous route. It was completed in 1928.,
Continental Divide through Gore Canyon
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We exited the Moffat Tunnel, and started down the other side of the mountain. We were shortly joined by the headwaters of the Colorado River, which soon entered Gore Canyon, which it had carved out of the bedrock over the past few hundred thousand years.
Photos 181, 182, & 183: Yep. That little trout stream will eventually grow into the waterway that eventually backs up behind Hoover Dam, and powers and waters pretty much all of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and half of California.
Photos 184 & 185: The right-of-way followed the course of the river, as it often does, following a mostly gentle slope as the canyon deepened. The sheer walls of the canyon grew higher and higher as we progressed downstream. That huge boulder in Photo 185 looms ominous.
Photo 186: Occasionally the canyon opened up into a wider flat valley. There were small herds of cattle grazing.
Photo 187: There was this one rather substantial isolated home on the side of the hill. There must have been an access road, but it does not appear from this angle. Someone who wants to get away from it all, I suppose.
Photo 188: And the river meanders on. I like the glimpse of our engine on the right of the photo.
Photos 189 - 191: This portion of the river is a mecca for kayakers, rafters, and other water-fanciers. There are dozens of companies that offer guided excursions down the Colorado. And yes, they did moon the passing trains. See Photo 191
Video 192: Here is a couple of minutes of what it looked like out the car window. Note how slowly we traveled. I'd estimate somewhere around 40 MPH. This was in part due to the twisty path of the right-of-way as it followed the river's meanders. But also, so we were told by Teresa, because the high outside temperature caused the rails to expand, and buckle slightly, making them potentially dangerous to take at high speeds. And yes, the ride did get a little bumpy in the straight sections where we sped up a little.
Photo 193: This is just a rather dramatic cloud formation that was so pretty that I had to include it here.
Photo 194: Some enterprising person constructed this large water wheel to harness the power of the river for electricity or water pumping or something. I can't believe it could be a very practical device. The water level of the river must vary considerably over the course of the year with spring floods and summer droughts, resulting in damage to the wheel, or leaving it high and dry respectively..
And on to Glenwood Springs
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Photos 195 - 198: After leaving Gore Canyon, the rails continued on through a short, relatively flat section of land, and continued into another canyon, whose name I have forgotten. (Do any readers know? Please let me know.) This was a canyon of very different nature. The canyon walls were wide apart, sometimes as wide as a couple of miles, and the river broadened out and slowed down as well. This resulted in a fertile valley, still quite green from the rainy spring, and well suited for farming and ranching.
Photo 199: A freight train on another track on the far side of the river.
Photos 200 - 204: After a while the railroad right-of-way was joined by I-70, a major cross-country Interstate highway. As I had mentioned in my report on July 10, this route was designed at considerable expense to put as small a footprint as possible on the terrain by elevating it above the ground. I was impressed both by the concern for the ecology and by the beauty of the resultant highway.
Photos 205 & 206: As the afternoon wore on, we emerged from the canyon to stop for the night in Glenwood Springs. I think both of these photos are rather pretty.
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Glenwood Springs
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We pulled into Glenwood Springs around 4:30. It was a long day's travel, but not at all tiring. Quite the contrary. I could have spent many more hours watching that part of the world roll by.
Photos 207 - 210: Hotel Denver I'll say this for Rocky Mountaineer. They don't put you up in a Motel 6. The Hotel Denver is situated right across the street from the train station. The sumptuous lobby (Photo 208) and spacious room (Photos 209 & 210) were more luxurious than either Jenny or I would book for ourselves. But hey! Vacation dollars are like a foreign currency. You tend not to pay attention to such details. It had been the host to many famous personages over its 135 year history ranging from Teddy Roosevelt to Doc Holiday.
Photos 211 - 213: Glenwood Springs Glenwood Springs is a tourist town in a very good way. They have eschewed the flashy and gaudy for the tasteful and pretty. The streets are lined with plantings, and the shops are small and welcoming. We did see one or two homeless folk on the streets, though. We got settled into the room and then went out to look at the town and get something to eat.
Photos 214 - 218: Glenwood Hot Springs Glenwood Springs prime tourist attraction is the eponymous Glenwood Hot Springs (Photo 218). It is situated across the river from the Denver Hotel and the bulk of downtown, and accessible via a footbridge (Photo 214). The view from the footbridge (Photo 215) gives a good feel for the geography of the town. It boasts the largest pool of hot spring mineral water in the world, which is truly enormous (Photo 218). The water's purported healing qualities have been used by people for thousands of years, starting with the Utes and other indigenous tribes. The resort building (Photo 216) was built in the 1880s. But somehow, the thought of soaking in 122° water did not seem all that inviting when the air temperature was only 20° below that. I wondered about the purpose of the serpentine water course shown in Photo 217. Perhaps for kayak races?
We retired for the night in anticipation of the following day's rail journey..
