11 Canyons Where It Is

[Anonymous]

This western railroad was famous for its canyons.

Name the canyon:

1.  where the railroad was laid as narrow-gauge on a standard-gauge grade built by another railroad

2.  where the railroad was laid as narrow-gauge on a standard-gauge grade built by the same railroad

3.  where Amtrak made a swan dive

4.  with the tightest curve on this railroad's transcontinental main line

5.  with the most tunnels

6.  with the fewest tunnels, and the highest bridge

7.  which should have been bridged on a big steel viaduct and bypassed entirely, but the railroad couldn't afford the steel

8. named for the Roman goddess of drought and starvation (appropriate!)

9. which was dammed by nature

10.  it's the little version of this more famous one

11.  the tunnels are twinned

S. Hadid

[Murphy Siding]

     Offhand, I'd guess the railroad to be Rio Grande?

     Is #1 American Canyon, on ATSF?

     Is the answer to #3 The Royal Gorge?

[Anonymous]

     Offhand, I'd guess the railroad to be Rio Grande?

     Is #1 American Canyon, on ATSF?

     Is the answer to #3 The Royal Gorge?

It couldn't be two different railroads, only one.  And American Canyon is on the Central Pacific.

[Murphy Siding]

     Offhand, I'd guess the railroad to be Rio Grande?

     Is #1 American Canyon, on ATSF?

     Is the answer to #3 The Royal Gorge?

It couldn't be two different railroads, only one.  And American Canyon is on the Central Pacific.

   I meant that in #1, the grade it was built on, was built by the *other* railroad, ATSF.  Is the railroad we're talking about Rio Grande?

[miniwyo]

Sorry Murph, The highest Bridge is spanning the Royal Gorge. So #6 is the Royal Gorge

[Anonymous]

Three answers so far:

This western railroad was famous for its canyons.  Rio Grande (Murphy Siding)

Name the canyon:

1.  where the railroad was laid as narrow-gauge on a standard-gauge grade built by another railroad Royal Gorge (Murphy Siding)

2.  where the railroad was laid as narrow-gauge on a standard-gauge grade built by the same railroad

3.  where Amtrak made a swan dive

4.  with the tightest curve on this railroad's transcontinental main line

5.  with the most tunnels

6.  with the fewest tunnels, and the highest bridge Royal Gorge, miniwyo

7.  which should have been bridged on a big steel viaduct and bypassed entirely, but the railroad couldn't afford the steel

8. named for the Roman goddess of drought and starvation (appropriate!)

9. which was dammed by nature

10.  it's the little version of this more famous one

11.  the tunnels are twinned

S. Hadid

[nanaimo73]

3 Amtrak's Swan Dive, Spanish Fork ?

9 Dammed by nature sounds like the Thistle slide, Spanish Fork Canyon.

11 Twin Tunnels sounds like Price Canyon, D&RGW + Utah.

[Anonymous]

3 Amtrak's Swan Dive, Spanish Fork ?

9 Dammed by nature sounds like the Thistle slide, Spanish Fork Canyon.

11 Twin Tunnels sounds like Price Canyon, D&RGW + Utah.

#3, no

#9, yes

#11, yes, (proper name is Price River Canyon)

[gabe]

# 8 Limus Canyon?

[Anonymous]

Wrong gender -- Limus was male.

If you know the names of the canyons on this railroad, and you stuck them one by one into Wikipedia, one will pop up as a female figure in Roman mythology who dispensed homilies and obvious truisms (e.g., "if you come to a fork in the road, take it") in return for libations of water or milk, thus was sarcastically referred to as the "goddess of drought" as she consumed water and gave nothing of value in return.

A further hint:  this canyon while deep and suitably impressive, is rarely seen today by non-railroaders since there is no passenger service on this line for about the last 40 years.  It can't be seen from any paved road except at a considerable distance, and most people driving whose eyes gaze over it probably don't even realize they're looking at the canyon's mouth.

S. Hadid

[nanaimo73]

Sounds like it could be Toponas.

 

7.  which should have been bridged on a big steel viaduct and bypassed entirely, but the railroad couldn't afford the steel

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison ?

[oltmannd]

#3 New River on C&O?

[Murphy Siding]

Wrong gender
obvious truisms (e.g., "if you come to a fork in the road, take it")

S. Hadid

     Yogi Berra was a Roman Godess?  Who knew?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like it could be Toponas.

 

7.  which should have been bridged on a big steel viaduct and bypassed entirely, but the railroad couldn't afford the steel

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison ?

Toponas is close to at least one of these canyons, but it's actually a broad, grassy summit, dividing the Yampa River watershed from the Colorado River watershed.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison could not have been bridged, especially not by an impecunious narrow-gauge, and at any rate the railway was following the canyon, not crossing the canyon.

[Anonymous]

Wrong gender
obvious truisms (e.g., "if you come to a fork in the road, take it")

S. Hadid

     Yogi Berra was a Roman Godess?  Who knew?

Every morning when I read my e-mail, I realize I should have stood in bed.

[Anonymous]

#3 New River on C&O?

Wrong railroad.  All 11 canyons are the same railroad.

[nanaimo73]

 

7.  which should have been bridged on a big steel viaduct and bypassed entirely, but the railroad couldn't afford the steel

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison ?

 
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison could not have been bridged, especially not by an impecunious narrow-gauge, and at any rate the railway was following the canyon, not crossing the canyon.

Florida ?

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=15&Z=13&X=40&Y=643&W=1&qs=%7cignacio%7c%7c

[Anonymous]

Think standard-gauge on this one, and late in the game, too.

[nanaimo73]

Mr Hadid, what was this-

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=12&Z=13&X=443&Y=5532&W=1&qs=%7ctoponas%7c%7c

South of Toponas, north of Bond.

[Anonymous]

Dale -- scroll up and follow the track railroad-west from Crater.  Note how the track loops geographic-east into a steep-walled side canyon, horseshoes at the end and comes back out heading west, turns north into a side valley, loops around that until pointing south, then turns 180 degrees north and threads through another canyon to emerge at Toponas Summit.  Two canyons you see -- which ones might they be?  (rhyming like Mr. T, which is not intentional)

Sikak

[nanaimo73]

So Rock Creek Canyon should have been bridged.

Egeria, just to the north, is the Roman Goddess.

What is that hole at Crater ? An old coal mine ? It is not mentioned in "The Moffat Coal Road" article in the 7-94 Trains.

[Anonymous]

So Rock Creek Canyon should have been bridged.

Egeria, just to the north, is the Roman Goddess.

What is that hole at Crater ? An old coal mine ? It is not mentioned in "The Moffat Coal Road" article in the 7-94 Trains.

Now you have #7 and #8, congratulations.

The "hole" at the west switch of Crater probably wasn't mentioned in the Moffat Coal article because it is a cinder cone that's being quarried for scoria, which is used mostly for landscaping.  It ships by open-top hopper on a sporadic basis -- maybe two or three carloads a month.  The Moffat Road at one time used this scoria for ballast because it is very cheap to quarry and it was in a convenient location.  It makes a very poor ballast because it's soft and is quickly crushed under traffic.  You can often see remnants of the scoria ballast peeking from beneath the good slag ballast the Rio Grande dumped in the 1960s and onward when it rebuilt the Moffat for heavy coal traffic.  (Look at photos from the 1960s for track conditions, and it's a far sight from what it was by the 1980s.)  There was a second cinder cone just west of Volcano siding that was also quarried for ballast.

The original engineering study considered bridging the mouth of Rock Creek Canyon, but big steel bridges were very expensive at that time, and tunneling was cheap.  The Moffat Road was starved for cash and engineered its route on the cheap, making its operating costs exorbitant.  A threat to the UP it was only in the minds of latter-day aficianados.

S. Hadid

[nanaimo73]

5.  with the most tunnels

That must be Eldorado Canyon, judging from the first part of "The Moffat Coal Road" in the 12-90 CTC Board.

[Anonymous]

Close enough.  The correct name is South Boulder Canyon -- Eldorado Canyon is actually a resort in the mouth of the canyon.  Tunnels 8 through 30 are in the canyon, though 28 is daylighted and 9 was never completed and bypassed.

[Murphy Siding]

     Is #2 Glenwood tunnel?

     Is #4 on *I think* Rollins Pass?  At least on the part of the line that was made redundant by Moffet Tunnel?

[Anonymous]

     Is #2 Glenwood tunnel?

     Is #4 on *I think* Rollins Pass?  At least on the part of the line that was made redundant by Moffet Tunnel?

#2 is indeed Glenwood Canyon.  What led you to that?

#4 is on the former Moffat Road, but not on Rollins Pass.  Rollins Pass was never part of a transcontinental main line.

[Murphy Siding]

#2 is indeed Glenwood Canyon.  What led you to that?

I went home at lunch and read up on the DRGW

#4 is on the former Moffat Road, but not on Rollins Pass.  Rollins Pass was never part of a transcontinental main line.

    So, not Rollins pass, but on the hilly, curvy route that the Moffet tunnel replaced?

[Anonymous]

#2 is indeed Glenwood Canyon.  What led you to that?

I went home at lunch and read up on the DRGW

#4 is on the former Moffat Road, but not on Rollins Pass.  Rollins Pass was never part of a transcontinental main line.

    So, not Rollins pass, but on the hilly, curvy route that the Moffet tunnel replaced?

Well, Rollins Pass is the hilly, curvy route the Moffat Tunnel replaced.  OK, this would be hard to answer unless you knew the railway well, or had a set of track charts.  There are seven canyons and one gorge on the Moffat.  This one is the shortest.

[nanaimo73]

3.  where Amtrak made a swan dive

The California Zephyr derailed somewhere in Colorado, and part of the train ended up in a river or creek ?

[Anonymous]

And a photo in Trains at the time, because the wrecked equipment sat on one of the platform tracks at Denver Union Terminal for many months until moved to Beech Grove.