Entering Colorado Springs

 

Modeling the AT&SF - D&RGW Joint Line through Colorado Springs from Milepost 70 to Milepost 80 circa 1978-1979

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Post 20: Progress Update Part 3, Entering Colorado Springs at last

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It's two miles of wide open running again south of Roswell with not much to mock-up, so we'll wrap up with photos of the prototype trains that are my inspiration for modeling the Joint Line through the Springs.

(Robert Harmen 1973)

The crew on board this Rock Island consist have just left Roswell and are in the final stretch of their run to downtown Colorado Springs, and from the looks of it the rear end crew is still rolling through the wye. Train length alone suggests that this is not the daily turn job, Train 51, rather almost certainly a detour train bound for Denver, but there are a couple other clues: the four unit lash-up instead of the normal two, with clear evidence that lead unit U25B 233 has bucked some heavy drifts on the way west, and the presence of at least four piggyback flats. Trains 50/51 did sometimes handle a pig flat carrying reefer trailers for dressed meat out of Knuckles Packing down in Pueblo, but they were usually set out at a TOFC ramp east of Roswell, with the trailers driven up and loaded there.

The north leg of the wye was a pretty sharp curve, and doubtless had not seen a lot of recent maintenance, making it risky to use it to turn the train northwards. The safer bet was to run the train south into Springs Yard, run the power and caboose around the train, and then head north up the Joint Line, likely with a Rio Grande pilot, if not a full Rio Grande crew.

 

 That's more like it for a typical Train 50, although maybe still a tad long. Here we see what is just out of the frame to the left in the top view, the side-by-side wood pile trestles that cross Mesa Creek, with the CTC signals governing the north end of Colorado Springs siding just beyond. Rio Grande bridge 73.30 has a ballasted deck, while Rock Island bridge 6080 has an open deck. I wish I had good photos of the bridges themselves, but they were replaced by a fill and culvert in the md-1980s when the siding was extended north. At least I have the D&RGW standard plans, so models of them will bridge the gully on the layout. I had to shorten the siding as there was not enough tangent track to fit the switch here, so the signals will be further south around the bend.

 
Santa Fe GP20 3103 was bound for Pikeview, running long hood first up the Rock Island past the D&RGW siding pot signal in 1978.

And in 1976 D&RGW SD40T-2 5360 was just a couple hundred feet south heading down the Rio Grande main with a coal train. Yes, that is the Rock Island mainline down in the weeds there. The white sign signifies that the junction with the Rio Grande is one mile south of this point.

(Robert Harmen 1976)

 

(Larry Green 1980)

BN U30C 2917 was northbound at the same curve in 1980, with the JCT sign poking in at far left.

(Colorado DOT 1960)

This 1960 aerial view north shows I-25 under construction, with the Rio Grande and Rock Island tracks, Monument Valley Park, and Monument Creek to the right. As I said, more open running.

 

D&RGW 137 was at the crossovers just north of the bridge over Monument Creek. The double pot signal governs the siding, while the single pot at right governs the Rock Island connection to the Rio Grande. This was the very end of the Rock Island mainline, and there was a phone box for the RI crew to call the Joint Line Dispatcher for the signal to enter the siding. Again, note the subtle track elevation differences, and the track hardware.

Here is my 1985 view of the crossovers, with the switch to the Rock Island main still in place. I don't have room for three tracks here, and I only need the northbound crossover, so this will be the north end of the siding on the layout. Trains setting out and picking up in Springs Yard will have to use the Rock Island main for headroom instead of the siding.

These two views show the extensive mature trees of Monument Valley Park along the tracks that I simulated in the teaser photo of my mock-up of this location.

 And finally, the Rio Grande crosses Monument Creek on this skewed four-span, ballasted double-track deck-girder bridge. I only have room for three spans on the layout, but it should still make for a picturesque signature entrance into Springs Yard.

 The yard tracks begin splitting off the main and siding immediately off the bridge and then they all duck under an overpass across the yard throat. See my post on Springs Yard.

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OK, that's it for the 2025 Year End update—I just squeaked it in under the wire. Time to get back to work now, as there's still a bit more benchwork to build, and then lots of track to lay and wire up. I'll post again when I have some real progress to show, unless I take a side trip into something interesting along the way to share with you.

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Laying out Roswell

 

Modeling the AT&SF - D&RGW Joint Line through Colorado Springs from Milepost 70 to Milepost 80 circa 1978-1979

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Post 19: Progress Update Part 2, Laying out Roswell

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BN Bicentennial SD40-2 1876 leads a Colorado & Southern freight south through Roswell in 1976. Note the slight 

difference in elevation among the tracks here. The train is on the D&RGW mainline "high iron", while the Rock Island 

side tracks within the wye are down in the weeds with far less ballast. These subtle height differences can be modeled 

by either cookie-cutting the layout deck or using different thicknesses of cork or homasote roadbed.

( Robert Harmen photo. Click on images to enlarge, open in a new window to zoom in)

With the benchwork installed between Russina and Colorado Springs Yard I could do a full size mock up of the last major location depicted on the layout that I have yet to deal with in detail. But first we have to get to Roswell. 

It's just over a mile and a half from the south switch in Russina to the north wye connection in Roswell, but only about 54 inches on the layout. That's short, as in "engine in one town, caboose still in the last town" short, but these are not towns, or even stations, just named locations on the railroad. The short distance doesn't matter much for through trains since you're attention is most likely on the head end power and the signals, and the switch jobs that work these "tracks between stations" are very short—an engine, 3-4 cars, and a caboose, so there really won't be any overlap to worry about. 

 (Frank Keller photo)

 

With Cheyenne Mountain dominating the view, heading south out of Russina the mainline crosses a short ballasted deck girder bridge across Douglas Creek draw immediately after the switch, and then runs through open country for about a mile. The top of the bridge abutments and the hand railings are all that are visible in this photo. The track curves left in the far distance at center, and at center left the Fillmore Street bridge can just be made out. Roswell is about half mile beyond the overpass.

 

 (Robert Harmen, 1975)

Here's the view north from Fillmore Street. As I said, it's mostly just open running. BN U30C 5819 at the head of a PSCX coal train bound for the Public Service of Colorado's Comanche Plant south of Pueblo is about to pass under the overpass. I thought about including a bit of the trailer park at the left edge of the scene as it appears in most photos taken here, but there just wasn't room for it.

 

And here is the Fillmore Street overpass, a utilitarian steel I-beam span supported by H-column piles. Should be easy enough to recreate using Evergreen styrene shapes.

On the layout this is the mainline emerging from under Fillmore Street right into Roswell, with C&C Sand against the wall.

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Roswell is...., no not the fabled UFO crash site in New Mexico, but rather where the Rock Island came in from Limon out on the high plains to the east and then turned south to run right beside the Rio Grande for the last two miles into Colorado Springs proper.

This was as far west as the Rock Island's Chicago, Kansas & Nebraska extension reached in Colorado in 1888.  Why Colorado Springs and not Denver? Track Gauge. The Rock Island was seeking a through route for traffic to and from California, and the Colorado Midland, being built to standard 4'-8 1/2" instead of Colorado "standard" 3-feet , offered the only practical interchange partner through the Rockies, and the Midland headed west from, you guessed it, Colorado Springs. The Rock Island did get to Denver, but to do so it negotiated a trackage rights agreement to run its trains up the dual-gauged D&RG mainline. That practice very soon diminished when the RI negotiated trackage rights over the UP's Kansas Pacific from Limon directly into Denver in 1889, although occasional RI detours up the Joint Line took place as late as 1978.

As the literal end of the line, Roswell originally featured a freight yard, wye, turntable, 16-stall stone round house and shop, trestle coaling dock, and other locomotive and car servicing facilities squeezed in between the D&RG mainline and Monument Creek. 

The collapse of the Colorado Midland during and immediately following World War I forever sealed the Rock's Springs route as a low density branch line with limited through traffic, and by my modeling era the only vestiges left of the facilities at Roswell were the wye and four stalls of the truncated roundhouse, although it was no longer used by the railroad, making both signature features of Roswell. 

 

(USGS modified)

A functioning wye is not strictly needed to operate the layout, but the north leg of the wye was still connected to the Rio Grande mainline in my modeling era, so it will come in very handy for turning trains and locomotives when restaging the railroad between operating sessions.

Modeling the vestigial roundhouse presents a problem, though, as a full scale version would overwhelm my highly compressed version of the wye, plus orienting it is a challenge as I had to alter the geometry of the wye itself. Placing it as seen from the Rio Garande mainline just doesn't make sense, so I will have to compromise quite a bit here.

Roswell is a natural fit in the corner where the east leg and the Rock Island main can pierce the backdrop and continue as a staging track outside the layout room, plus, it allows me to fit some active customers on the layout for the daily Rock Island local turn job to switch.

Over the years there were several rail customers clustered around the wye at Roswell, including a railroad-owned stockyard, three petroleum distributor "jobbers", a steel fabricator and contractor, and the large warehouse and materials storage yard of the City of Colorado Springs.

 

Aerials views of of the Rock Island wye in Roswell looking north in 1964 (top), and looking west in 1968 (bottom)

(both Pike's Peak Library)

The stockyard and oil jobbers were gone by the late '70s modeling era. Landscaping material firm C&C Sand was a real business occupying the site of the old stockyards, I've just invoked modelers' license to make it a rail-served customer, presuming the RI was willing to cut a shallow pit under the old north leg of the wye for unloading open hopper car loads of decorative scoria and pumice rock, white quartz stone chips, pea gravel, and the like. The firm can also receive boxcar loads of brick and patio pavers on pallets, and use a portable ramp and front end loader to unload decorative redwood and cedar bark and colored wood chip mulch from end-door woodchip gondolas. That actually happened on another spur in the Springs down in the Drennan industrial park.

 

A panorama of C&C Sand in Roswell with the Rio Grande mainline in the foreground. This set of photos is from 1985, after the CTC siding had been extended north using the old Rock Island right of way. The C&C sales office and shop is at the left, A&P Steel is at the right, with the old Rock roundhouse at the edge of the frame behind the BN boxcar carbody shed.

 

Here is the C&C office and equipment shop that looked for all the world like a Pikestuff kit, and the model that I have started using Pikestuff parts.

 

Steel fabricator and erecting contractor A&P Steel used a spur off the north leg of the wye as a team track to unload steel from gondolas and flat cars. It featured the company name as a roof-top sign on the building facing Interstate 25. I plan to try half inch felt letter board letters to replicate the sign letters, which were red and I suspect illuminated. 

Colorado and Eastern NW2 403 was switching three CWP gondolas on the north leg of the former Rock Island wye in 1983, with the red A&P STEEL sign letters directly above the unit. In the distance at left is A&P's main building, and behind it their elevated craneway, neither of which will fit on the layout.

Here's the location mocked up on the layout, with hopper loads of decorative scoria spotted over the pit on the north wye leg, and gons spotted on the side spur for A&P.

At right within the wye is the old Rock Island roundhouse, which presently hosts the Pikes Peak Trolley Museum, but it was being used by a building or painting contractor in my modeling era.

My mockup model of the roundhouse is reduced from 4-stalls to 3 and is built slightly under scale so as not to overwhelm the wye. Here is the scene looking through the viewport through the backdrop. Rather than use a simple but difficult to disguise hole through the backdrop I elected to end it short and leave the entire corner open. This will allow crews to operate in Roswell from either inside or outside the layout room, or both when there is a two-person crew. It will also provide much better access for maintenance.

And not only did this avoid dealing with fitting the backdrop around the awkward plumbing, it opens up more modeling opportunities.

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 A view east up the Rock Island main as it left Roswell and began climbing out of 

Monument Creek valley, with Cascade Avenue and Nevada Avenue overpasses in the distance.

Immediately beyond the east wye switch the Rock crossed Monument Creek on a 2-span deck girder bridge, and a bit further east up the grade out of town there was once a short spur serving a couple more oil jobbers and an insulation company. Just a short way further the RI main ducked under first Cascade Ave, then Nevada Ave, and then the old Santa Fe mainline in quick succession. Just beyond is the first spur curving north to the industrial area that I covered in a post on Pikeview and another on the RI industrial park lead. Not all of these features along the way will fit, of course, I'll give priority to the bridge over the creek, one of the street overpasses, and the old ATSF bridge abutments.

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On the way south out of Roswell is the City warehouse and material storage yard, which was served by its own spur. Built in 1960 atop the old freight yard, the warehouse received boxcars at the three dock doors, while the extensive materials storage yard saw gondolas, flats and depressed flats spotted for unloading power poles, reels of transmission cable, small and large transformers, sewer pipe, and everything from cast iron man hole covers and hydrants, to street and traffic lights, to parking, water and electric meters.

Rock Island GP38-2 4334 is in charge solo of eastbound train 50 into Roswell in 1979 (running compass north here). The City warehouse is at left, with the Rio Grande mainline at right.

Immediately south of the City warehouse both the Rock Island and Rio Grande crossed over Fontanero Street on parallel bridges, and then a short ways further south both ran over parallel pile trestles across Mesa Creek. The gap on the layout will be used for the more interesting creek gully and trestles, but that can wait until Part 3.

We'll close with one last view of Roswell as depicted on the layout.

The City warehouse was a very long building, even this truncated modified Walthers kit used as a 3D flat is over 3 feet long.

Rock Island U25B 230 and GP40 385 are switching the City spur off the main, having left the balance of their train blocking the main track. Meanwhile Santa Fe GP9 2923, attempting to run around them, waits in the short siding to enter the main and proceed to Colorado Springs yard.

Wait a minute, what's the Santa Fe doing running on the Rock Island? What's going on here?

Remember, when the Santa Fe main line through Colorado Springs was pulled up in 1974 an isolated stretch of the old ATSF main on the north side of town was kept in place to service a handful of active customers, with the Santa Fe obtaining rights to use the Rock Island main track and an industrial spur to reach it.

The Rock Island's Springs branch was dark territory, meaning it was operated without signals using Time Table and Train Order rules, but the Rock through Roswell itself was governed by Rule 93 Yard Limits, meaning trains and engines may use the Main Track (Yard Limits only apply to the Main Track) without protecting against following movements, expecting to encounter other trains or engines using the Main Track, and thus must operate at Restricted Speed, able to stop within half the range of vision, typically not to exceed 20 mph. Yard Limits is basically analogous to visual flight rules, with crews working out how to keep out of each other's way, execute a meet, and pass each other without Dispatcher supervision or train meet orders.

We see that happening here. Rock Island train 51, the westbound half of the turn, is switching the City warehouse on its way into the Springs, leaving it's un-flagged train on the main. Meanwhile, the Santa Fe local switcher is returning from working their isolated Pikeview track. No worries, as soon as the RI power clears the main to reach in to pull the empty boxcar the RI ground man will align the switches so that the Santa Fe job can continue on its way back to the Springs.

Cooperation between two crews working for two different railroads, with the Dispatcher none the wiser.

Next post we'll look at the final home stretch of the new benchwork as the tracks continue beside Interstate 25 and then enter Colorado Springs.

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A more in-depth progress update, Part 1

 

Modeling the AT&SF - D&RGW Joint Line through Colorado Springs from Milepost 70 to Milepost 80 circa 1978-1979

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Post 18: A more in-depth progress update, Part 1

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As I wrote last post I've been making substantial progress on the layout, and as promised, here is a more thorough update on my layout work through this fall and early winter, or rather the first of three posts as there is a lot to cover. So, fix yourself a cuppa–it is -14°C outside after all, or pour yourself a cold one if you prefer, and read on.

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I mentioned that my good friend Nick Molo, owner of the model company Moloco, was going to be visiting from Australia in early November, which really motivated me to get cracking so that there would be some actual layout progress to show him since his last visit.

First, I wrote previously that I had extended the hardboard backdrop panel all the way down the stud wall to the Rock Island wye at Russina and painted it sky blue, as shown in the photo above. However, I don't think I mentioned before that over the summer I also addressed the ceiling in the layout room before I got any further with more benchwork that would only be in the way.

I was dead set against putting up a drywall ceiling–which I've done and don't ever want to do again, thank you very much, plus it makes accessing ground floor plumbing and wiring near impossible after the fact. I also didn't want a drop-ceiling–which I've also done. Although it solves the access problem it is finicky to install, plus I just don't care for the way it looks.

So I ended up doing what a lot of other model railroaders have been doing lately: I just painted the joists and sub-floor above them dark grey to seal everything and make it just disappear visually, yet preserve full access. Problem solved.

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Now on to benchwork progress. 

No, still no track down yet—I know, I know, layout carpentry and sub-roadbed are just not very sexy, but they do have to get done before the rails can be laid, and it has to be done right or there will be problems later. 

New open grid sections were built and installed for Russina and Roswell, and I then cut and milled enough 3/4 inch plywood sub-roadbed to extend to the north end of Colorado Springs Yard and then some. This sub-roadbed is cut to the D&RGW standard right of way width of 24 feet for single track, 39 feet for double track, with both edges milled with a 60° router bit to simulate the 30° slope of repose on the shoulder for ditching. Curve stock is 42 inch radius with spiral easements built in.

D&RGW R-O-W section diagrams for Single and Double Track

Nick likes to get his hands dirty when he visits—he cheekily says he likes to learn from the mistakes we make on my layout before he gets the chance to make them on his own, so after he arrived and settled in we set to work constructing the benchwork to connect Roswell to the north end of the simple table-top Colorado Springs Yard section. (Layout Plan)

First we built an open grid section to fit across the short wall and then a diagonal section to link it to the existing yard section along the long wall. The short wall section was straight forward, except that it has a short drop section to allow for the bridges across Mesa Creek, but there's a lot going on on the diagonal section, including the junction with the Rock Island, the north CTC siding crossover, and a 4-span deck-girder bridge across Monument Creek. My original thought was to make the entire section a removable keystone, but Nick insisted that would be unmanageably heavy and cumbersome. He was right, of course. Together we did some redesign work to put just the crossover on the removable section, and the bridge firmly on fixed benchwork. Afterwards I made a few modifications and refinements, including hanging the drop section for the creek bed off the end of the yard benchwork, and reducing the weight of the lift-out by replacing the 1/2 inch plywood decking flanking the roadbed with 1/2 inch foam board. Normally I avoid using foam because it is a toxic fire hazard, but in this instance I deemed its use justified as I can now easily lift the section with one arm from below. 

And here's all the new benchwork in place:

The territory between the two red lines on the USGS topo map is what this new section of layout represents. Starting with the bridge over Douglas Creek in Russina (at left in the photo, at the top on the map), running south to pass under Fillmore Street, through Roswell (in the corner under the plumbing), over Mesa Creek (the drop at photo centre), and then across Monument Creek to enter Colorado Springs Yard (the drop at right in the photo, at the bottom on the map). 

That's almost four miles compressed into approximately 23 feet.  Most of what was cut out was just open running, but I did lose one potential customer. Just south of Douglas Creek there was a spur listed in the 1975 ETT as Capp Homes. It was inactive by my late 1978-79 modeling era, but it was revived in the 1980s to serve a new Brookhart Lumber yard. Either way, there just wasn't enough room between Russina and Roswell to fit it in, plus the Fillmore overpass was more important to serve as a scenic view block between the two scenes.

Looking more closely here at the new additions, at left is Douglas Creek draw just off the south end of Russina. This was originally a fill with a cut stone culvert, but at some point it was replaced by a short ballasted deck girder bridge. The Russina Spur will curve sharply here and climb steeply up the draw beside the pink foam board at left. Just beyond are the earthen fill ramps of the Fillmore Street overpass, which will visually break up the short run to Roswell.

Roswell will get its own post shortly, but here is how the Rock Island wye there fits into the corner:

I know that the wye was still functional in my modeling era, and the ETT lists it as still physically connected to the Rio Grande, but it was not regularly used, and there was a third wye leg running between the roundhouse and the Rio Grande main anyway. But that leg had to go as room is very tight here in my highly compressed version of the wye, so the connection to the D&RGW will stay. The turntable was long gone, but the Rock's old roundhouse still exists. It had been reduced to only four stalls by the 1950s and was no longer used at all by the railroad in the 1970s. I'll need to further reduce it to three stalls, plus build it at slightly reduced scale so that it doesn't overpower the scene. The long blue building is the City of Colorado Springs municipal warehouse, which had its own spur.

Here's the view of the wye from the other side of the wall and backdrop. Fitting a runaround siding, the north wye leg, and a spur track here will require using a number 3 wye switch and a number 5, the only one on the layout so far. Otherwise it will use all standard code 70 number 6s.

And here is the view back north & east into the corner. The drop is for Mesa Creek, which was crossed by side-by-side pile trestles. The Rock Island mainline will continue east through the wall beyond the layout room as a staging track.

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South of Roswell the Rio Grande and Rock Island run along Interstate 25 past Monument Valley Park, which will provide a nice scenic background on the way into downtown Colorado Springs.

We enter the home stretch as we turn onto the diagonal run with the lift-out and the drop section for Monument Creek.

Here's the lightweight keystone lift-out:

And this is why it has to be there:

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That sums up what Nick and I achieved during his visit and afterward. As a reward for completing this brand new stretch of bare layout I took a break and treated myself by mocking up how I envision the scenes that will go on it.

Next post – Part 2 on mocking up Roswell, followed by Part 3 on crossing Monument Creek and entering Colorado Springs.

Check back soon.

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