Dale Hastin of Denver, Colorado collects rail memorabilia and especially blotters. She offered to let me post items from her collection of blotters, so during a recent visit to Colorado I scanned many of the blotters that related to passenger … Continue reading
Category Archives: D&RGW
Though stretched over six panels, instead of the four used in the 1934 timetable, this timetable has, of course, fewer trains. Gone are the narrow-gauge trains over Marshal and La Veta passes. Gone is the Scenic Limited. Gone are trains … Continue reading
In 1934, the Denver & Rio Grande Western had just completed the Dotsero Cutoff allowing its trains to go due west from Denver through the Moffat Tunnel and over the Denver & Salt Lake Railroad to Grand Junction and Salt … Continue reading
In 1983, Amtrak President Graham Claytor called the president of the Rio Grande and offered to take over passenger service, replacing the tri-weekly Rio Grande Zephyr with Amtrak’s daily Chicago-Oakland San Francisco Zephyr (which Amtrak renamed the California Zephyr once … Continue reading
Although the menu cover is rather plain, in Rio Grande Gold (meaning orange), at least this Rio Grande Zephyr 1979 dinner menu is still a folder. Instead, the menu offered four table d’hôte entrées: Rocky Mountain trout (the favorite), London … Continue reading
After the Southern Crescent was taken over by Amtrak in 1978, the last private long-distance train in America was the Rio Grande Zephyr. This was a remnant of the California Zephyr, using cars from the Rio Grande’s share of the … Continue reading
This eight-page, black-and-white brochure is quite a come-down from the colorful 20-page brochure the Rio Grande published some two decades earlier. Perhaps, having just emerged from bankruptcy in 1947, the railroad was trying to save money. But wait! Did you … Continue reading
Like yesterday’s Rio Grande brochure, this one is undated. Unlike yesterday’s, the maps in this one include the Moffat Tunnel route, which dates it to after 1934. The Rio Grande initially only had trackage rights over the Denver and Salt … Continue reading
There’s no date on this brochure, but the centerfold map has no hint of a rail line from Dotsero to Denver, which means it was published before 1932, when the Denver & Rio Grande Western began building that line. The … Continue reading
Here’s a breakfast menu from 1939 that’s a mate to the 1941 dinner menu I posted last May. Where the dinner menu featured Mesa Verde on the cover, this one has Pikes Peak. Click image to download a 1.1-MB PDF … Continue reading