Joint Line through 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 4: The Joint Line through Colorado Springs in a nutshell

Oblique aerial of central Colorado Springs

(click on image to enlarge)

 It’s 1954 and we’re looking east as we would be from the summit of Pike’s Peak, with the Rocky Mountains at our back and the high plains of Colorado stretching off to the horizon before us.

Entering the frame at bottom left is the D&RGW mainline from Denver (in orange), which hosts all southbound traffic on the Joint Line. It crosses Monument Creek on a double-track deck girder bridge to enter downtown Colorado Springs. After ducking under Bijou Street the joint D&RGW-CRI&P depot pops into view (built circa 1880 and subsequently expanded several times). The imposing Antlers Hotel looms above it across the park to the east. It looks like the Springs section of the Rocky Mountain Rocket has arrived and is parked in front of the depot, the equipment waiting to be turned on the wye for the return trip east later in the day.

Across the track is Robinson Grain, just before the mainline passes beneath the Colorado Avenue viaduct to run past Simpson Grain, Marr Wholesale Groceries, the retired city gas plant, and the large brick D&RGW freight house with a two-story office block at the north end. Opposite it is the wye leading to the Rio Grande’s Manitou Branch, which runs a few miles west into the foothills. In this era there were only a few yard tracks and a hand full of small customer buildings along the east side of the yard, while on the west side was Abrahamson Lumber.

Continuing south the main once passed beneath a low wooden trestle that carried the Colorado Midland and later the Midland Terminal east (blue dashed line in the dark slash) to reach Colorado & Southern track (in green) embedded in Monero Street to continue to the Santa Fe depot eight blocks to the east and five blocks to the north.

The C&S itself turned north here to run as far as Colorado Ave in Sahwatch Street, which was crowded with yard tracks and customer spurs serving the likes of Newton Lumber, Crissey-Fowler Lumber, Supperstein Steel, Western Iron & Metal, Union Ice, and perhaps its largest customer, the Denver Equipment foundry, which manufactured hard rock mining and ore milling and processing machinery until the plant closed in 2007. It occupied an entire city block and later expanded west across Sierra Madre Street after the Midland Terminal was torn up.

Further south the Rio Grande runs past the Colorado Springs municipal power plant, which was built on the site of the yards and shops of the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District Railway (bottom right corner). The Grande’s main then curves east just out of the frame and reenters just before crossing over Nevada Ave, where a connecting track splits off to curve back north to reach the northbound Santa Fe main, yard and depot. All northbound passenger and freight cars had to be transferred via this track to head north on the Santa Fe main, just as all southbound cars did to head south on the Rio Grande.

The D&RGW main then crosses the Shook’s Run gully on a long fill and stone culvert before exiting the frame for good to head south to Pueblo for connections to points south, east and west.

Across the top of the photo is the northbound Santa Fe mainline (in red), entering at top right to run past Summit Brick. It joins with the connecting track at Fountain Boulevard and then proceeds north through the ATSF yard past a wye enclosing a grain elevator. The C&S Springs Branch once crossed the Santa Fe here on a diamond to continue east on a spindly trestle across Shook’s Run to reach it’s own north-south mainline several miles east of Colorado Springs, but in 1900 the C&S abandoned its own sinuous and undulating route in favour of trackage rights on the Santa Fe, and by extension, on the Rio Grande when the Joint Line was created in 1918. Remaining isolated C&S trackage and customers in the Springs is switched for them by the Santa Fe.

The Santa Fe main and yard continues north past Sutherland Lumber, over Costilla Street, past the old joint AT&SF-C&S freight house (built in 1889 and later rebuilt), and then reaches the Santa Fe’s large brick depot, passenger platforms, and new freight house (all built in 1918). Beyond the depot the main track crosses over Pike’s Peak Ave and then runs north through residential neighbourhoods across numerous grade crossings, which would later become a sore point with residents and the city fathers.
   

Time and change marches on

By my late 1970s era the railroad presence in the Springs shown in the photo had changed considerably. Foremost, that friction between the City and the Santa Fe over trains disrupting traffic and residential peace and quiet finally came to a head, prompting the Santa Fe to vacate its right of way through the Springs in 1974 at the city’s urging, electing to run instead on the D&RGW main through the city, which was converted to a bi-directional CTC-controlled line through town.

The Santa Fe yard was also truncated and downsized, leaving only a few tracks to service existing customers, while the Rio Grande yard was enlarged to handle the local traffic of both railroads, replacing the Grande’s freight house with more yard tracks hemmed in by existing and new buildings along the east side.

In addition, many of the smaller pre-Interstate Highway system industries of the 40-foot boxcar and 32-foot semi-trailer 1954 era once served by the Rio Grande, Santa Fe and Colorado & Southern were no longer large enough to justify rail service or even still in business. These included the railroads’ own freight houses, the smaller warehouses and distributers, small lumber, coal, petroleum, grain and feed dealers and the like. However, a few rail customers were still active and had even grown, while others had relocated to less cramped digs outside of the downtown core. In fact there was actually more local rail traffic in the Springs in the late 1970s than in 1954, and on top of that Colorado Springs was experiencing a population boom supporting multiple lumber yards, building supply dealers, concrete batch plants and such. I’ll describe some these traffic and customer base changes in future posts.

Adapting all this to my layout space

So how to fit not only the Rio Grande yard and customers, but also the remnant Santa Fe yard and customers on a layout, seeing as the two were many blocks apart. I think that’s best shown with the following schematic.

 

 

Basically, I simply unfolded the truncated Santa Fe yard and connecting track 180 degrees to run beside the D&RGW main to the south of the Rio Grande yard. True, this reverses the compass direction of the Santa Fe yard, but it remains internally consistent. I can live that. Of course it is more involved than that, as we will see in the next few posts showing how I laid out the yards on the layout.

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Laying out the Russina Spur

 

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 3: Recent layout progress

Laying out the Russina Spur industrial park

After a  long break I’ve been busy working on the layout over this past Fall and Winter months, making good progress planning things out full size in three dimensions before I cut and screw lumber together, lay track and run wiring. Cardboard and pencil lines are so much easier to change when it becomes clear that things just won’t fit as originally envisioned or even as drawn in CAD. Using actual turnouts and building mockups made quickly out of scrap foamcore and matt board are great reality checks to help verify track and building locations, orientations and sizes, and they are easily changed or added to using an Olfa knife and a hot glue gun. Plus they will be useful stand-ins until the actual model buildings can be constructed—and there will be a lot of them to build!

This is the first of several rather long posts as there is a lot to catch up on, and there is more to come. Below are some photos and descriptions of the process as of late February, 2024. I've also updated the layout plan to reflect recent progress and changes.

(click on images to open a larger view, open in a new Tab or Window to be able to toggle)

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 USGS 1975 (modified)

 

Work in the Fall first focused on the Russina Spur that served the industrial park to the west of the mainline. Below is an old view of the layout at Russina, but little has changed along the mainline here other than plywood has now replaced the cardboard. What is new is what has happened to the left of the pink foam board. 

     

First a recap of Russina. On the far side of the main here is a double-ended switching lead along the east side of the main. Apparently this lead was only ever tied into the main at one end, but which end changed over time. Originally the switch was at the north end, hard against the Garden of the Gods Road grade crossing, but after a grade separation project that depressed the road and elevated the track the connection was changed to the south end. I’ll be keeping the grade crossing but connecting the siding at both ends to make it a runaround, as I don’t have room to put a runaround up on the Russina Spur where it actually was.

A stub track off the switching lead serves Pike’s Peak Distributing (center right), the large Budweiser distributer for the Springs area. With Fort Carson, Peterson Air Force Base, NORAD, and the Air Force Academy all located in and around the Springs they sold a lot of suds and received regular rail shipments in white 50 and 60 foot Manufacturers Railway insulated RBLs.

Weicker Transfer also had a storage warehouse beside the lead here (to the left at upper center). I don’t know if it ever had rail service, but I intend to model buried ties beside the building without rail to suggest that it once did but no longer does.

The pink foam board along the aisle is the eastern edge of the bench that the industrial park sits on, and the heavy dark centerline in the foreground is the start of the spur that serves it.

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My task this past Fall was working out the geometry and track arrangement for the stub peninsula to the west of the main that would be the home of the Russina Spur, listed as a track between stations in the Joint Line employee timetable. Here’s what the area beside the main line looks like. It is very busy, dense and complicated, but keep in mind that I’m only interested in the buildings along the bottom edge with direct rail access, the rest will be out in the aisle. Simplify, simplify, simplify is the order of the day here.

  

Google Earth

 

Development of the industrial park here began in 1960 on a parcel of land located on the stepped mesa to the west of the Rio Grande mainline. Access required a sharply curving spur off the main that climbed a steep grade along the north edge of Douglass Creek ravine (bottom left and far left). A concrete “tunnel” was buried beneath the Valley Expressway (now Interstate 25), which was being constructed at the same time (upper left), and a runaround siding and tail track was installed immediately west of the highway along the lip of the ravine (top left, but pulled up in this view).

Two trailing turnouts east of the highway led to customer spurs inside the curve on the bench between the highway and the main line. One was very short and served only the warehouse of Johnson Storage & Moving, the agent for United Van Lines in the Springs (the two finned tilt-up buildings linked by a low connecting annex at center left). The other was a much longer spur running parallel to the Russina Spur and mainline that could serve multiple customers.

It was a tricky challenge working out the track radii, grades, turnout locations, building sizes and placement here. I didn’t want it to look too crowded or too model railroady, so several buildings were omitted and others were compressed. In my modeling era the switch to the moving company was spiked, but the longer spur served two customers: Dry Wall Products (center), which received bulkhead flats and boxcars of gypsum wall board, mud, steel studs, and foam insulation board in an open unloading area for storage in several sheet metal buildings; and Mountain Wine & Spirits, a beverage distributer operating out of a larger concrete warehouse (center right). I only have to suggest the DWP buildings as they would mostly be in the aisle, but I will have to model a bit more of the beverage distributer warehouse.

  

Frank Keller photos

Here’s the start of the Russina Spur at the turnout off the main line, with Pike’s Peak Distributing across the main and Weicker further north. Notice the electric lock and timer on the switch and a small relay cabinet to the left, as the Dispatcher must authorize access to and from the CTC mainline here.

  

 

This view looking east shows the Russina Spur curving sharply as it climbs the steep grade up from the main line. Douglas Creek ravine is between the fenced parking area in the foreground and the Johnson warehouse. Inside the curve is the first customer spur, wrapping around the Johnson warehouse and then levelling out onto the bench to run parallel to the mainline. The second spur to Johnson is just visible entering at far left, ending just to the right of the dock and garage door at a crossed tie wheel stop. Across Monument Creek valley to the east is Austin Bluff, which will be rendered on the backdrop.

  

 

And here is the scene as it will be depicted on the layout. The Russina Spur is a 26 inch radius, the customer spur is 24 inch. One might question featuring such a large building when it isn’t even an active rail customer anymore, but it is a signature structure that anchors the entire scene in place. I’m using kit wall sections to model this and other distinctive double T-fin concrete tilt-up wall panel buildings. Great West Models once made these modular wall panels in molded styrene, but the company is long gone. Fortunately one of Walthers’ Cornerstone kits depicts walls of this type (Modern Concrete Grocery Warehouse, kit 933-4105). This style of building was quite common in the Springs, probably because Stresscon has a large plant in the area that manufactures reinforced cast concrete wall, floor and roof panels, bridge beams, and the like.

  

 

First in on the long customer spur is the Dry Wall Products spot. Wrapped gypsum wall board and insulation board was unloaded by forklift here and moved to the lean-to sheet metal storage buildings in the distance.

  

 

This view from the west looks back toward the unloading spot at the far treeline. Walthers makes an almost perfect match for these steel lean-to sheds (two are included in their Modern Lumber Transload, 933-4106; one is also included in kits 933-3347, 933-4108, and 933-4119).

  

 

The other customer on the long spur is liquor distributor Mountain Wine & Sprits. It operates out of another Twin-T tilt-up building. There are actually three of this style building along the spur north of DWP, but only this one needs to be modelled.

  

 

Here is what the spur will look like on the layout, as photographed through the conveniently not-yet-installed backdrop. That is one of the Walthers steel sheds cut in two and placed open-side against the edge of the layout.

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I don’t have enough room to fit all of the Russina Spur in its entirety, so I omitted the I-25 “tunnel”, seen here along with the turnout for the short spur to the Johnson warehouse. The Russina Spur was eventually extended on a northwest heading up Douglas Creek draw to where it crossed Valley of the Gods Road at grade (also omitted), then it curved west to run parallel with the street a short distance, ending at Forge Road.

  

 

In this view taken right above the grade crossing the Russina Spur is curving west behind the bushes at the left. The white building beyond the bushes is Dixon Paper, while the metal buildings up on the mesa are part of the Western Forge plant.

In the second view we see the right-of-way running behind and past Dixon Paper. The rails are still in place, but heavily overgrown.

  

 

On the layout I extended the Spur curve to form a reversed J with the long stem running parallel to the main line, creating a short but generous 34 inch wide alcove operators aisle between the peninsula and the mainline.

  

To fit the peninsula J the curve is reversed from the prototype as the track runs behind Dixon Paper. It will be built using wall parts from a different Walthers Cornerstone kit (Modern Concrete Warehouse, 933-4067).

Dixon Paper was a Colorado-based distributer with branches in several cities in the state. Their Colorado Springs warehouse had a spur that ran into the rear of the building for protected unloading out of the elements, with truck docks at the front of the building. This view shows the building in later years repurposed as a retail operation, with the remnant Spur still in place but paved over to the west. Above it you get a glimpse of the sprawling nature of the eastern end of the Western Forge plant.

  

Google Earth (modified)

 

Dixon Paper as it will be on the layout with the Western Forge buildings beyond to the left.

  

 

In my modeling era the area to the west of Dixon Paper was just an open vacant lot and truck park. At far right you can see Dixon semi-trailers parked, with Western Forge buildings at top center.

This view shows the trailing point turnout of the spur into Dixon Paper. The T-fin building was not rail served, but it will be on the layout.

  

 

Google Earth (modified)

Forge Road at left is of course named for Western Forge, a large, low-rise plant of multiple concrete and metal-sheathed buildings (think Pikestuff). The company manufactured hand tools for several name brands, notably the Sears house brand Craftsman line. If you own any Craftsman drivers, pliers or wrenches bought before production was moved off shore they came out of this plant. I haven’t been able to definitely establish that WF ever used rail service, but it will in my world, receiving gondola loads of steel bar and rod stock and covered hoppers of plastic resin pellets and rubber for molding tool grips and handles.

  

 

This view looks past Western Forge Plant 3 on the left toward Plant 2 in the distance. Although Plant 2 was still much higher here, notice the ramp down to the lower level. This suggests that rail service to the plant was a plausible scenario, one that I will take advantage of, although I will be placing Plant 2 at the same elevation as Plant 3.

  

 

This is Plant 2 looking east from Forge Road, with plenty of roof clutter, blower ducts, platforms, and a large dust collector. This is the kind of alley between plant buildings that I want to suggest. The only thing missing are a security gate house and silos for plastic pellets.

Both of those existed a bit further up the street at Plant 4, where molded handles and grips were formed around the forged tool bodies. I intend to transplant both the tanks and the guard shack over to Plant 2 to create a composite of the complex.

  

 

To support their traffic I am giving WF its own multi-spot spur buried in the alley pavement between its plant buildings. This keeps the lead open for switching Dixon Paper’s spur without interfering with cars spotted for WA, plus it makes it easier to switch the WF track. This is a satellite view that I have sliced, diced, compressed and reassembled to create my concept of how to model the area.

  

And this is how I have laid out Western Forge as it will be on the layout. Obviously I ran out of cardboard here, but you get the idea. Plant 3 is a simple concrete block building, while Plants 2 and 4 will be constructed of Pikestuff wall sections. The pellet silos are Walthers parts (933-3081, also included in their Magic Pan Bakery, 933-2915), but they need to be reduced to just over half their height. Walthers also makes a suitable large dust collector and bin (933-4087).

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And that’s how I plan to tackle the Russina Spur. I think working it should be a fun job that will keep a 1-2 person switch crew busy with planning both facing and trailing moves without it being an overly complicated puzzle. Add in negotiating with the Dispatcher for track & time and dodging mainline trains and it should be a desirable job to bid on.

Next time I will recap the process of laying out downtown Colorado Springs and the yard full size.

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Bridging the Gap

 

Modeling the AT&SF - D&RGW Joint Line through Colorado Springs

from Milepost 70 to Milepost 80 circa 1978-1979

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Bridging the Gap

A second Covid lock-down gradually brought layout progress to a halt as I used up my stock of on-hand materials, and then spring and summer outdoor activities like hiking, birding, canoeing and building a garden shed left little time for work in the basement. Eventually the lumber yard restocked and time freed up again, and I was able to tackle the swing gate that will connect the lower South End (Pueblo) staging yard to the rest of the layout.

On the last layout I had to build a simple slide in/out bridge across the entrance to the laundry area, using trunk latches to secure it in place. This time around the gap of the main entrance into the layout is intentionally much wider, so I wanted to build a more substantial swing gate to bridge it. I had incorporated a solid hinge post in the stud wall, so I set to work designing a gate structure that would not sag over time.

 

Here is the frame of the gate built out of 1x4 clear pine clamped to the 2x6 hinge stile on the right. At the top is a box beam glued & screwed together, with a riser at each end. It is set 3 1/2 inches below the sub-roadbed as I plan to eventually model the Fort Carson railroad's through-girder bridge across Fountain Creek atop the gate, although for now a simple piece of 3/4 inch plywood roadbed with 1/8 inch hardboard side guards will suffice.

Mitred blocks of 1x4 lock the diagonal strut in place, but to stiffen it I added a 1x2 on edge so that it could not flex (not shown). I also added an additional 1x4 sistered to the vertical strut on the right to provide sufficient thickness to screw into through the hinge stile.

 

Here is the gate with 1/4 inch plywood sheathing on both sides to add additional resistance to sagging, and 1x6 side boards screwed in place. The resulting sandwich matches the 5 1/2 inch width of the 2x6 hinge stile and provides sufficient width on which to build the model bridge in future.

 

The gate swung open a bit. It flexes downward less than a millimetre when weight is deliberately applied across the top. A keyed sill will be affixed to the edge of the left stud for the end of the gate to rest on when closed to insure accurate track alignment, and a slide-bolt into the stud will lock it in place. Next I will need to install wiring to power the track on the gate and a mechanism to kill power to the track on either side of the gap when the gate is open.

It's been nice to make some progress on the layout after such a lengthy break.

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