Keith,
Your map is not off. The Railroad, before the merger which created the modern CB&Q was the "Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska". The right of way was built by the Union Pacific and was known as the Denver, Western and Pacific. It was never railed from Buffalo Buttes (aka Burns Junction) to Longmont.
The railroad itself was incorporated as the Denver, Utah and Pacific. The DU&P built on a 3' gauge right of way from Denver, through Broomfield and Lafayette to Erie (actually Canfield). It met the Denver, Longmont and Northwestern in Erie THe two were later merged. The DU&P was Moffat's first Railroad intended to penetrate the front range. The DU&P line to Lyons (the operated line went from Denver to Lyons) was never considered the Main Line. During DU&P operations the line to Lyons was always considered a branch line. The main line was to peel off at Hallack Junction (about 100th and Wadsworth) and go west from there to ElDorado Springs and up South Boulder Canyon over Rollins Pass and into Grand Lake. The line was to go from there to Rangely and Meeker and on to Salt Lake City.
When the CB&Q bought this line all trans-Colorado ambitions were dropped. The CB&Q bought the DW&P right of way from the UP receiver and standard gauged the line from Burns Junction (west end of Broomfield) to Lyons. The DW&P right of way ran west of the existing 3' gauge right-of-way. Surveys were also run from Lyons to Estes Park for a planned extension.
The line ran north-south through Erie. The UP and CB&Q had a joint agency located southwest of the wye that was located there, which connected the UP and CB&Q via a wye. The line continued north and swung NNW through Idaho Creek and came into Longmont from the southeast, interchanged with the C&S and GW and ran on its own right-of way on to Lyons. The Red depot looking building that is west of the Turkey Plant (if it still is), is the old DU&P/B&MR/CB&Q depot. The C&S depot later bacame the joint agency when the CB&Q gained control of the C&S.
I had a chance to ride the entire line from Broomfield to Lyons and back on a CB&Q freight train many years ago.
The was severed when vandals sent fire to a trestle near Idaho Creek. The Longmont and Lyons traffic was rerouted up the C&S to Longmont and the remaining local traffic was handled by a local out of Denver. The line was slowly abandoned back to its existing size (the spur to Lafayette).
The last time that I was in Erie, the track was still in to just south of where the diamond was with the UP. But that was almost 20 years ago.
Rick Steele
