Hi Festus,
What you saw, as Charlie said, was the original C&S main line to Pueblo.
There was a Sundance book done on the line a few years ago called "Denver & New Orleans In the Shadow of the Rockies" by an author with the unusual name of James R. Jones. It is a good overview of a line of which not much has been written about.
The Portion from Denver to Pueblo was built by a John Evans (of the Denver Pacific, DSP&P, Colorado Seminary and Colorado Governor fame) as the Denver and New Orleans Railroad. The connection to Colorado Springs was on a Branch ine that left the D&NO main at Manitou Junction and meandered into the Springs. Yes, there was an interchange with the CRI&P at Falcon.
The remainder of the line, from Pueblo to the New Mexico/Texas State Line was a line built by General Grenville M. Dodge, of UP fame. This line was called the Denver, Texas and Fort Worth Railroad and it connected with the Fort Worth & Denver City Railway at Texline. The FW&DC was also Dodge owned.
The D&NO was reorgainzed as the Denver, Texas & Gulf RR. The DT&G and DT&FtW came under control of the UP as part of their subsidiary the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf. The UPD&G consolidated the DT&G and DT&FtW operations. When the UPD&G was reorganized into the C&S in 1898, this line bacame their main line From Denver to Pueblo and Texas. After the C&S became part of the Joint Line agreement in 1899 with the AT&SF the line lost its status and was operated as a glorified branch line. By 1917 the line from Falcon to Pueblo Junction was abandoned and the line was then being operated as far south as Falcon.
By this time the C&S crews referred to it as "The country Line". Operations continued until flooding cut the line, which was real disaster and wiped out a lot of the track in Elbert and south. The Flood also wiped out about half the town of ELbert. Abandonment of the line from Denver to Falcon was granted in 1936.
A small section of this line remained until 1993 from the C&S Yard, down Buchtel Blvd and across Evans Avenue and I-25 to a grain elevator at Connors. I remember watching an NW-2 switcher, covered hopper and caboose go by my classroom window at the University of Denver every afternoon while I was sitting in Economics class back when there was much less History to learn.
The line was sold to RTD in Denver (but very quietly), RTD has recently used the right-of-way to build the light rail line from South Broadway down to the Denver Tech Center as part of the T-Rex project.
Another little known fact is that the Denver and New Orleans was the proud owner of not one but two Mason Bogies. I think that John Evans liked Bogies.
As an aside, Here in Cheyenne our local Hospital acquired some land with an old Open Platform Coach on it. They were asked not to bulldoze this coach. They didn't and paid to have it moved to an individual's property where it could be restored. Hol Wagner did some research on its origins. The coach came from an 1889 order from Pullman Company from the Colorado & Texas Construction Company. This construction company was owned by none other than Grenville M. Dodge. The coach was delivered lettered "Denver, Texas & Fort WOrth" and was one of the only 6 pieces of Passenger equipment ever ordered by them. It became C&S COach 537 and is probably the only remaining piece of DT&FtW rolling stock on earth.
Amazing how all this stuff ties together, isn't it?
Rick Steele
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2008 11:21AM by Rick Steele.
