Forgotten Lands, Places and Transit

A little over a year ago, I started  collecting 35mm slides of railroad scenes, in addition to my own railroad photographs, and scanning them into an online personal album. My main interest in starting to collect slides was preservation, not dissimilar to how and why I feel the need to map the abandoned railroad network of the world. Conrail CR 5338 Action Scene. FRRandP photo Collection. 20,000 photos later, and I feel like I have a much greater understanding of what exactly it means to preserve, collect, and curate a photo collection. For one, even with all of the incredibly large amount of data one can store in cloud based databases, not without a significant team behind me was I going to be able to create a geolocated database of railroad images. RRPictureArchives and RailPictures  are about as good as it gets as far as that end is concerned. Amtrak 281 crossing over the Chicago River near 18th Street. FRRandP Photo Collection Some of my thoughts and observations ...

While Silverton, CO is most famous as the terminus for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad , the town was a terminus for three abandoned railroad lines which ran to points north. During the operation of these lines, the Durango & Silverton was the Denver & Rio Grande's Silverton Branch , which came into service in 1882. Nope, not this one! Image: D&S 481, c.1980. FRRandP Photo Collection The Silverton Railroad ran from Silverton to Ironton, CO between 1888-1926. It, along with the other two abandoned lines discussed in today's blog were owned by Otto Mears to reach various mines in the area north of Silverton. According to DRGW.net, "Mears' intention for the Silverton Railroad was to eventually reach Ouray. The sheer ruggedness of the north slope of Red Mountain Pass made the route very hostile to railways. Mears' originally surveyed route - his toll road - had sections of 19% grade, making it very unsuitable for anything but possib...

The Uintah Railway ran between Mack, CO and an area near Rainbow, UT for a distance of about 63 miles, beginning in 1904. ( Right-of-Way ) A narrow gauge operation, its primary haul came from Gilsonite , but also hauled passengers, cattle, mail and library books.  One of the more unique elements of the railway, in addition to its incredible curves, was its impact to the science and education. When a library opened up in Dragon, UT, the railway agreed to deliver and return books free of charge to anyone along the route. It also hauled dinosaur bones that were excavated from the gilsonite mines!  "The fossils were carefully prepared by Earl Douglass to make sure they weren’t damaged during the transport process. Never the less, the bones proved to be so heavy the wagons actually had to be lowered into a trench and the bones loaded directly onto them because they were too heavy to pick up. Even with this precaution, one of the specimens broke through the bottom of one of the wag...

Railroad lines attempting to brave the terrain of the Rocky Mountains meant that some of the tightest curves ever in the US railroad network were located in the State of Colorado . DRGW 207 at Alamosa, CO. Fireman's Side of Engine, 1907. Image: NG Train Pics But that doesn't mean every railroad line meanders about in the State. Ironically, one of the longest straight (tangent) sections of track was also located in Colorado, along a Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad line running between Alamosa and Poncha Springs, CO, known as the Valley Line . DRGW.net describes the Valley Line as such, "The original part of the Poncha Pass route, from Mears Junction (joining with the Marshall Pass main line) down to Orient, was initially constructed along with the mainline in 1881. Nearly a decade later in 1890, the line was extended down from Villa Grove to Antonito, CO, where it connected with the existing the existing narrow gauge lines: La Veta Pass, the Antonito Branch, and...