Towers on the Joint Line

 

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 15; Towers on the Joint Line

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In my last post I mentioned that I had decided to include an abbreviated model of the Rio Grande's North Yard tower to help identify the north staging yard as Denver. That set me thinking about what I could do to similarly identify the south staging yard as Pueblo. More on that in a moment, but it also raised the question about interlocking towers on the Joint Line. After all, besides railroad stations, is their any more quintessential railroad building than a tower controlling an important junction or the crossing of two railroads at grade?

Historically there was only one interlocking tower on the Joint Line, located at the very north end at South Denver. The handsome two story wood frame tower protected the crossing of the D&RGW and AT&SF mainlines coming south out of Denver, along with access to the C&S Connors branch, seen here in this 1918 photo:

 

(click on image to enlarge, open in a new window to zoom in)

At the south end there was a one-story brick "tower" at Pueblo Junction, protecting the three-road crossing of the D&RGW (upper left), ATSF (middle) and Missouri Pacific (foreground), but the Joint Line actually ended at Bragdon, ten miles to the north, where the Santa Fe and Rio Grande split to make their separate entrances into Pueblo.

Neither of these interlocking towers were located on the segment of the Joint Line that I am modeling, plus the South Denver tower was long gone by my era anyway.

If we expand the scope to Denver and Pueblo proper, there were a few more towers that we can add to the discussion. There were also Yard Towers, intended to provide the Yardmaster an elevated overview of the classification yard that they supervised.

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In Denver there were seven more towers of note.

Denver Union Terminal originally had two brick interlocking towers, built by General Railway Signal in 1918. Tower A at Cherry Creek controlled the south throat into the Denver Union Depot station tracks, while Tower B at 20th Street controlled the north throat. Why two towers? Recall that Denver Union Depot hosted passenger trains of the Rio Grande, Santa Fe, Colorado & Southern, Burlington, Union Pacific, Rock Island, Missouri Pacific, and later Amtrak, plus freight trains running through the station to and from the Joint Line, a very busy, albeit short, stretch of trackage indeed! In 1959 these two towers were replaced by a single modern tower to the west of the station tracks at 18th Street shown here:

 

Moving on to Yard Towers, here is a 1984 view of the Rio Grande's North Yard tower. Gone is the Rock Island sign, along with its namesake, and note that the building has been expanded, with a new wing added along the north (right) side. A new enclosed stairway has also been added to access the tower.

BN's 31st Yard tower was at the north end of the modern yard office beside Globeville Road. Here is a contemporary view of the rear of the building from the I-25 Park Ave off ramp.

C&S Rice Yard had a large brick Yard Office at the south end, but no tower.

UP's Oklahoma Yard tower was just above 23rd Street (top, at center), with a second yard tower at 36th Street (bottom). These UP towers are relevant as in the late 1970s some Santa Fe Joint Line trains originated and terminated in the UP yard instead of at Rice or BN's 31st Street yard.

  

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In Pueblo there were three towers to add.

The D&RGW yard tower is little known as it was sandwiched between the Rio Grande (bottom) and Santa Fe yards (top), now UP and BNSF, with no public access. I've never even seen a photo of it except in aerials:

The AT&SF-C&S Yard tower is much better known as it could be seen from the 4th Street overpass. It bore joint Santa Fe and C&S lettering. This has to be the signature structure that I will add next to the entrance to the south staging yard to identify it as Pueblo. Between the two towers there will be signs for all of the Class 1 railroads operating on the Joint Line. 

Santa Fe also had a Hump tower, which was lesser known. It sat at the crest of the hump to the NW of the main tower and yard office, and like the Rio Grande tower there was no public access or even a nearby street to see it from.

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Layout progress update: I had time to compose this quick post as I literally waited for paint, or rather primer to dry. All of the backdrop is now in behind Russina and Roswell and now awaits a coat of Benjamin Moore True Blue sky blue paint. Benchwork with roadbed has also progressed as far as Roswell. Next time I will show some photos.

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