Late and lit up - a photo on Flickriver

Late and lit up

            It's a good thing I was up, around and shooting away while eDDie slept in the Blazer because I heard the Anthrax whistle for the grade crossing down the valley. I should have heard it on the crossing further down grade. I scurried over just in time to catch this snap barely in time and at too slow a camera speed. I mentioned to eDDie that Amtrack was late, as usual, and there had been no other train on the block. Late? You bet and boy is it blasting toward the tunnel at speed and more. They are booking so that they don't slip from their time block and get held over again. I didn't have time to wheel about and check to see if the portal curtain was up. I surely hope so or it will be a real mess. At this speed and this close to the tunnel, there is no way to slow for a closed tunnel curtain. When I got my tour of the portal operations, a train, running at far lesser speed, had to stop because the engineer noticed that the curtain was currently down. Gravity is used to run the curtain up when released but the air pressure in and outside the tunnel have to closely match or the curtain can't roll. Fortunately I got to see the curtain operation one day. Unfortunately I got to listen to the curtain roll up when inside the portal structure. Whoosh! The tunnel uses atomic blast grade shock absorbers to stop the rolling curtain and I was not prepared with fingers in my ears. 

The curtain waits open, until after the train exits and until the pressure is equalized and then it drops to seal the opening. Then the massive fans turn on to evacuate the tunnel from the west to the east portal. Don't stand close to those running fans or you might fall prey to the famous scifi scenario. I have extended comments on the east portal operations below. 

Before the tunnel,  the trains had to slow here to manage the 180 degree curve north  that set the grade east again and up the hill, seen behind the houses. Such speed could never have allowed this to stay on the tracks and trestles up and over the Continental Divide. That was a tortuous route. 

D&RGW operated the tunnel and big coal mines near Somerset and Paonia on the Western Slope even though it was D&SL RR (Denver &  Salt Lake RR) that inspired the tunnel after years of winter snow fighting campaigns over the Hill Division on the Continental Divide. Coal shipments will be taking a major hit if we want to come even close to global warming commitments, sans the idiota right. Denverites were always envious of Southern Wyoming and wanted their own transcontinental route to fuel its growth. D & SL RR operated the big standard gauge articulated Mallets over to the Western Slope and ran many trains over the divide. Find images of the station, Corona, on the Denver Public Library site, pretty astounding!

Taken on: June 3, 2017

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Late and Lit Up

Amtrack

Train

Moffat Tunnel

Tunnel

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Union Pacific

D&RGW

Denver & Rio Grande Western

Denver, Northwestern & Pacific RR

D,NW & P RR

Grade

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Denver & Salt Lake

D&SL

Tolland

Rollinsville

RockyPix

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W. Michel Kiteleyf16

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