RE: [CBQ] Re: The Q was planning on going further west

[HOL WAGNER <holpennywagner@msn.com>]

Actually, the Colorado Railway surveyed three different routes over and through the mountains west of Denver, including two that crossed Rollins Pass and utilized lengthy tunnels under the Continental Divide -- the longer one some 9,100 feet in length.  The third route went up Clear Creek Canyon, generally some 30 feet above the existing narrow gauge Colorado Central line, and by means of tunnels and 30 steel bridges went as far west as Georgetown before looping back east and climbing up over Berthoud Pass.  All three routes rejoined at approximately today's Winter Park -- at the western foot of Rollins Pass and the west portal of the Moffat Tunnel.  Any of these three routes would have been competitive in the late 1880s when the only alternatives west from Denver were so much longer -- either south all the way to Pueblo before turning west, or north to Cheyenne before heading west
 
It's worth mentioning that the original moving force behind the narrow gauge Denver, Utah & Pacific was none other than David Moffat.  Once he had the railroad surveyed and under construction in 1881-82, he assumed it would be completed through the mountains, and he moved on to other railroad ventures.  But it would be another 20+ years before his dream of a railroad through the Rockies directly west from Denver began to be realized.  When construction was halted in 1883 on the DU&P route into the mountains, the Q acquired the surveys and began its own investigations of a practical route.  A couple of years later, it bought control of the DU&P, which had succeeded only in building from Denver up to Longmont, serving a number of lignite mines along the way and at least partially fulfilling the Burlington's need for coal at its western end.  The narrow gauge DU&P was extended a few miles west from Longmont to Lyons, where stone quarries (including a major one owned by the Union Pacific) provided a steady traffic source for years.  In 1889 the Q standard-gauged the DU&P, employing a substantially new route between Denver and Longmont.  And well into the early 1900s -- even after acquisition of the Q by the Hill roads in 1901 -- surveys were run from time to time west from Lyons through the mountains, as the Burlington continued to consider building further west.
 
Hol 
 

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To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: gbrewer@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:33:52 +0000
Subject: [CBQ] Re: The Q was planning on going further west

 

Hol,

I look forward to your book on this subject.

The Colorado Railroad Museum is a great resource for research, and they occasionally publish some very interesting books.

Still, the route mentioned does not sound like a very competitive one -- all those mountains and passes would really make for a slow, tortuous route.

Glen Brewer
Is this any way to run a railroad museum? (Colorado Railroad Museum)  

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