That's the track the Denver and Rio Grande Western Al, enjoy the trip!
The route up the front range was originally built by Denver business tycoon David Moffat ( as part of his Denver & Salt Lake RR) as a more direct, westward route to Salt Lake City. During Moffat's lifetime track made it as far as Phippsburg, Co and the road was driven into bankruptcy by it's impossible route over the summit at Rollins Pass. The Rio Grande bought the D&SL and eventually with gov't help built the 6 mile long Moffat Tunnel, also used for Denver's water supply and a connection between the two railroads on the west slope. The trip up the Front Range features a series of curves called the "Big Ten Loops" and as you head upgrade some fantastic views of the plains ( I photographed quite a bit of this in the early '80s) and there are many tunnels and curves. Winter Park ski resort is on the west side as are incredible scenery at Gore and Beyers canyons. The railroad's slogan was "Mainline through the Rockies" and in this they didn't disappoint, Grand Junction was the railroad's centerpoint for freight train classification, beyond to the west is the desert moonscape of central Utah ( I visited here as well) and eventually the Wasatch Range.
The Rio Grande was one of three railroads that ran the original California Zephyr between Chicago and San Francisco, with the advent of Amtrak in 1970 the little railroad choose not to have the train on it's rails, instead they ran their own equipment on the route for many years - It was the last privately run passenger train in the U.S. for many years, using the classic all Stainless Steel cars and some of the very last EMD F- 9 locomotives running. Management took pride in train and kept it on time, clean and it featured fresh Rocky Mountain Trout in the diner as a specialty. It was of course, all to good to last as the Rio Grande was swept up and merged into the much larger Southern Pacific RR in the '90s and then became part of the Union Pacific.
Earlier this year I completed my models of the locomotives used during the '70s and into the '80s. Electro Motive Division (GM) F-9s, the real ones are happily part of the Colorado Railroad Museum's collection.
