23 May 2005, 12:23 am
Today was a live steam day at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Denver. The museum has a 1/2 mile loop that they use for demonstration rides of their rolling stock.
As the Georgetown loop is now being operated be a new company (an enormous cock-up, if you ask me), the former operators have relocated their rolling stock to the museum. Supposedly, they plan to place a 3rd rail on the Royal Gorge road (making it compatiable with both standard and narrow gauge rolling stock as it once was at the turn of the 20th century), and run the equipment there (they also run that Royal Gorge tourist train). How Union Pacific will react to having that route 3-railed remains to be seen, as it could possibly cause issues with heavy freights if they ever decided to use the Tennessee pass route again.
Anyways, After spending the afternoon happily riding the train and pestering the operators about various railroad minutae, I got to take a series of loops in the cab! I was in heaven, it was a lot of fun!
They were running number #40 a Baldwin 2-8-0. This is a picture of #40 in action on the Georgetown loop. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me today. 
23 May 2005, 9:17 am
