D&RG / Canon City to Salida Colorado

[Maddox61]

http://www.drgw.net/info/TC1963-TPRG
click on the Y on the right for a detailed track map, very handy

http://www.drgw.net/info/RoyalGorgeRoute
A bit of info

Can you tell i really want to see this route done? hahaha :wave:

Fantastic site. Plenty info. All I need to do now is try and understand it.
Only kidding.:hehe:

The grade, and mile markers are going to be a real help.

Thanks for the info.

Oh, by the way, I would not hold my breath on getting to see this thing finished. I don't think it will ever be finished.

I am too much of a perfectionist.
One example; I just spent 2 days creating image files (2,058 to be exact, each is exactly 500m) that I got off Google Earth
to get the terrain, rails and roads placed in there exact locations. And that only covered Canon City.:hehe:

That is of course 3 sets of images, one for Terrain, one is Google Earth image maps and the other is rail maps.

So I'm a bit insane:udrool:

Thanks again. I can use all the info I can get.


Merrill

 

[Klinger]

Basically what you are modeling is Tennessee Pass, or at least part of it. Tennessee Pass runs from Pueblo to Glenwood Springs, crossing the last Class 1 10,000 Foot railroad pass left in America. It was built Narrow gauge, but converted to Standard Gauge early on, dual Gauge existed in Salida until about the 1950's when it was finally removed.

Tennessee was operated by the Denver and Rio Grande Western until 1989, when the Company merged with the Southern Pacific railroad. SP operated it until 1996, when they then Merged with the Union Pacific Railroad. UP crews were not used to the steep grades on Tennessee, and the railroad already had also aquired the Moffat Tunnel route in the D&RGW/SP/UP merger, so in 1997, the last trains ran over Tennessee Pass. UP tried to Abandon the line and tear out the track, but the ICC required them to offer it for sale first. Knowing that BNSF would jump on the chance to buy another route over the Divide, they instead discontinued operations, but left the rails intact, pending reactivation just incase something was to happen to Moffat Tunnel.

I remember some of the last SP trains running over Tennessee around 1995-1997, don't really remember anything earlier then that. I have watched as Tennessee Pass has slowly faded away and rotted.

I'd love to see more then just the Royal Gorge be reactivated as a tourist line, there was a call recently to add Buena Vista to Salida as a tourist line, but the plans were made by people who know nothing about railroads.

There were also plans made in 2005 to dual gauge the Royal Gorge once again, so that Lindsey Ashby, who owns the operations as well as the old Georgetown Loop operation, could bring his ex Loop equipment to the Gorge to return steam to the line once again. UP nixed that idea for maintiance concerns, and the Loop equipment ended up at the Colorado Railroad Museum. That was right after the CHS/Ashby/Railstar disaster, thankfully the Loop still runs, just with different equipment

 

[sawyer811]

^

I wondered when you would show up here Klinger...:hehe:

 

[Maddox61]

I think I realy need to do some reading.

My main interest outside of the suspention bringe was the steam engines. I realy want to run them on this route. Do they still exist? If not, I need to find the era and use that.

What I am trying to do is create this line as it was in about 1930 - 1950, since the Suspention Bridge and Incline Railway was buildt in 1929 - 1931. I believe at that time, they ran steam powered passenger trains on that route.

The main thing I want to be able to do is model the engines, passenger cars, caboose, the incline railway and the suspention bridge in Blender.

My expertise is definitaly modeling. I lack a quite a bit in the knowledge of trains outside of the HO and N scale hobbying that I have done over the years.

I know these have nothing to do with trains, But here are a couple pics of the models I am working on.

Trainz opens so many doors when it come to modeling
I feel that the items I wish to build for Trainz will be a real challenge.


So, This is the method to my madness. :udrool:


Merrill

 

[sawyer811]

Here's a good site i stumbled upon whilst searching for good pics of D&RGW steam: http://www.drgw.net/info/Steam this includes both the standard and narrow gauge steam roster. the home page: http://www.drgw.net/ lets you get more info too.

also, this is good too: http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr2254.htm

PS, basically everything but the L-97 and maybe the L-105 4-6-6-4s would be running in the time frame you would want to model, just going off the time frames you're throwing out. I wish you luck in your endeavors: we badly lack D&RGW steam around here, at least as far as Standard gauge is concerned (Prowler901 has NG down to the science!)

 

[Maddox61]

Thank you for the links. Plenty of real good info.

And yes, there is a limited supply in D&RG lines in gen. I only have the ts2009 program and I know in it (outside of the downloads) there is only maybe 2 sets of dual guage track and 4 -5 narrow guage track to choose from. Ain't realy checked on downloads yet.

Right now, I am working on the maps I created for the layout. Finaly got an exact 1km square map. Now I am working on getting them loaded into the layout and positioned right so I can tweek the elevation. IE; When I loaded the DEMS the elevations in larger areas kind of step down rather than sloping. So I am going to use the tricks I learned from you guys on here using the roads and tracks to level the elevations (Good trick).

I just want a good foundation to start with. Then it will be time to lay some track:udrool: :udrool:

Thanks again,


Merrill