11 Canyons Where It Is

[Anonymous]

Sorry -- 14-to-16 hour days for three weeks straight pretty much fries the mind, and if that doesn't do it, five straight days in 105-degree heat doing field assessment certainly does.

The last one is Little Gore, which is just west of Gore Canyon, between Azure and Radium.

Canyons on the Moffat, in order west, are South Boulder, Fraser, Byers, Gore, Little Gore, Red Gorge, Rock Creek, and Egeria.

S. Hadid

[ericsp]

1435mm, I see you are back. Don't forget this quiz.

[Murphy Siding]

1435mm:  I think you still owe us acanyon-#10

[Murphy Siding]

     Is #10 "Grand Canyon(of the Arkansas)" ?

They are all on DRGW.

     Grand Canyon(of the Arkansas) River, on the DRGW

[ericsp]

     Is #10 "Grand Canyon(of the Arkansas)" ?

They are all on DRGW.

[Murphy Siding]

     Is #10 "Grand Canyon(of the Arkansas)" ?

[kenneo]

#7 is the Yampa Valley Line up Egeria Canyon with the side trip up Rock Creek.  Climbs from the Colorado to Toponas and was intended to be the main line of the Denver and Salt Lake.  When DRGW built the Dotsero Cutoff, it became nothing more than a branch.

[ericsp]

This leaves just #10 to be deciphered.  So another hint.  It's the "little" version of a canyon named for a "sportsman" and the Red Gorge is just to the west.  In between is a scintillating town.  (and what is this town's name, anyway?)

I would say Gore Canyon ("named for Sir George Gore, a rich Irish sportsman who camped in Middle Park in 1855" from http://ghostdepot.com/rg/library/guide%20book/moffatrt.htm) and Burns (the scintillating town), respectively.

[Anonymous]

10 of 11 so far.  You guys are persistent!

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 Glenwood (Murphy Siding)

3.  where Amtrak made a swan dive Fraser (also called Fraser River) (ericsp)

4.  with the tightest curve on this railroad's transcontinental main line Byers (copcarSS)

5.  with the most tunnels South Boulder (nanaimo73)

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 Rock Creek (nanaimo73)

8. named for the Roman goddess of drought and starvation (appropriate!) Egeria (nanaimo73)

9. which was dammed by nature Spanish Fork (nanaimo73)

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

11.  the tunnels are twinned Price River ((nanaimo73)

This leaves just #10 to be deciphered.  So another hint.  It's the "little" version of a canyon named for a "sportsman" and the Red Gorge is just to the west.  In between is a scintillating town.  (and what is this town's name, anyway?)

[ericsp]

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 ?

Fraser Canyon

http://www.dola.state.co.us/oem/Mitigation/plan/09%20%20Landslide_Update.pdf (Page 25)

For some reason, the NTSB only gives the location and date on its Reports page. Also, they must not have reports that old online.

[ericsp]

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.

It seems like that would make sleeping difficult.

"They give you cash, which is just a good as money." - Yogi Berra

[Murphy Siding]

     I think #3 is Glenwood Canyon

[Anonymous]

You're right!  16 degrees, and it's obvious when driving by on U.S. 40.

[CopCarSS]

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.

How about Byers Canyon for #4?

[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.

[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]

#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.

[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]

     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]

     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]

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.

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[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]

#3 New River on C&O?

Wrong railroad.  All 11 canyons are the same railroad.