Hey ya'll, I'm new to the board, but I was wondering if anyone has knowledge about the facilities for the C&S in Denver during the 1960's? My family moved to Littleton in the late 60's and from that point forward, I spent many hours watching C&S/ATSF trains moving up and down the jointline. My father took me over to diesel house that the Q maintained many times, but we never made over to the 7th Street roundhouse or any of parts of that yard.
Hey, Where is Centennial? I haven't been back to Colorado in a few years but it doesn't ring a bell. We are hoping to get back to Denver for Thankgiving holiday. I don't think that there will be any time for the CRM, but I'm hoping to work in a quick visit to Caboose. Things sure have changed since I lived there last. The stations and industries all along the main have moved or disappeared. Very little looks the same. It's nice to see light rail though. Denver is light years ahead of Texas in that regard. Can you ride from Littleton all the way into the LODO area? The area that I'd like to loosely model is now an amusement park from what I understand. I sure didn't see that coming, I never thought that the yard would stick around forever. Real estate is too valuable for the area not to have been redeveloped. Still...I kind of wish some part of the 7th Street yards had survived.
Centennial (http://www.centennialcolorado.com/) as a city was incorporated in about ten years ago and is now I believe the 5th largest city in Colorado. Basically what was left of Uncorporated Arapahoe County south of Denver became it's own city due to a sales tax fight with Greenwood Village. RTD Lightrail is exspanding and yes, you can catch the train today right in Downtown Littleton and go straight down to LODO. Here is the old D&RGW Station now being resued as the RTD Lightrail Station in Downtown Littleton. Won't be long and you will also be able to take a RTD trains out to the new airport (http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/media/maps/index.html) as well as many others areas of the Denver Metro Area. RTD now owns Denver UNION Station and they are making it the hub for all RTD rail traffic coming in/out of Denver while still sharing it with Amtrak #5/#6. Even UP is working with RTD now to help get more passenger rail going on the east side like BNSF did several years ago. Elitch Gardens moved awhile back, that's the amusement park you are hearing about.
So does Centennial include the all of the area between Belleview and University? When I was growing up that was all just open fields. I had wondered what happened to the Rio Grande station. Thanks for the information. I saw the the Santa Fe station a few years back and got some pictures. Looks like the city tried to make it look like a Burlington station. The caboose looked good though. And its kind of strange for me to look down into the draw and see the tracks lowered. When I was a kid we use to go hang out around the speeder shed and watch the trains go by. Now that Elitches has moved on, what's become of the property? Will it be redeveloped or has another outfit taken over?
Hey, I didn't mean to ignore you. I guess I haven't asked anyone really, but what roads do ya'll model ( railfan/research)?
Centennial is roughly bounded on the West (Broadway), East (Parker Road), North (Orchard Road), and South (County Line Road). Elitches is still around, it just moved from it's old historic location as the old spot was to small... Even though my family has been in Colorado since 1885, my primary focus is on the Delaware and Hudson. Still, being a 4th Generation native to Colorado you know I also track Colorado RR history... :tb-wink: :tb-wink: :tb-wink: :tb-wink:
Well then let me pick your brain a little. Let me say first that I have not been to the CRM archieves as yet but I did contact one of it's curators. The suggested that I get in touch with BNSF, but that didn't pan out. I've talked to one or two of the folks at the BRHS and the friends of BN. I've spent an extensive amount of time browsing Photoswest, the denverphotoarchieves, the Library of Congress HBS, and westernrailimages. There just don't seem to be a whole lot of photos of the secondary (support) structures for the C&S yards. Things like offices, sand towers, shops etc. What am I missing? It seems that like my father and I we were all pretty taken with the diesels and some of the other equipment, but sort of forgot to photograph the nuts and bolts.
Wow, fourth generation is definately something to be proud of. My family is still there in Lakewood and Wheatridge, but I married a Texan after I left Texas A&M and except for every now and then we don't get back much. I don't really know too much about the D&H except that they had some truely awesome steam engines and I always liked the paint scheme on those PA's.
