Well said, Tom. This is exactly what I wrote about. Sadly, it is true for industry beyond railroading. I understand that some do try. But far, far too many just believe the gold is their "sheepskin", not experience. Which that latter is the true valuable.
Glenwood Springs East: The arrival of our eastbound CZ (Was going to take a cooler shot, but got stymied by other people on the platform, so had to make do with this.) An aging ex-SP Water Car just outside Bond, CO. A westbound freight waiting our passage at Tabernash (So, here the single track splits, the westbound continues straight, while the eastbound curves around the town of Tabernash with the tracks rejoining on the other side.)
From faded memory, it seems to me that Frasier was once D&SL territory. And that town at some time had held a record for all time low winter temperature?
You'd be correct! It is along the former Salt Lake Route and I do believe it does hold that coldest temp record.
I know that Rogers Pass, Montana held holds a lower forty eight states record at seventy below zero. That's about an hour and one half south of me...
Praying for winter here, with it's snows, to help suppress all of our forest fires. Am tired of smelling smoke, inside of my residence.
Glenwood Springs East Part 3: While the train was wyeing for the reverse into Union Station, took the time to shoot some views at BNSF's small engine terminal. KCS ES44AC 4775 A pair of SD40-2s doing a bit of car shuffling BNSF SD40-2 1844 CSX SD70MAC 4784 BNSF C44-9W 1013 BNSF ES44C4 6801 (which is gonna get set somewhere) Some final notes of the trip. -Clocked the fastest mile at a bit over 43 seconds, which is around the 79 MPH mark (which I presumed didn't really happen on a mountain division) -Was held up for 45 minutes on the eastbound trip for a westbound ballast train (putting our train from being on time, shockingly enough, to being 45 minutes late). This delay was accompanied by a remark from a fellow passenger that "the passenger train gets no respect in this country anymore".
Sad. True. Every freight operator stretches the requirement boundaries, for handling these trains. Originally there were to be penalties for such a failure. But where it counts in this land, the regulator is toothless, gutless, spineless and easily 'influenced'.
