Tennessee Pass & the Royal Gorge Route-Preview

This preview is for our "Tennessee Pass & the Royal Gorge Route" DVD.

This is perhaps the final look at one of the most incredible railroad lines in the United States. On August 23, 1997 Union Pacific ran the last through train over this former Rio Grande main line, possibly the end of "the big show" of railroading on this historic Colorado route.
Fortunately, our cameras were there when the railroad was still running full tilt, and we see everything from the manifest to coal and taconite trains. Lots of mainline diesel action! Minturn was still a busy place with helpers being cut in and out. Our video shows all the line threatened with closure, from Dotsero east to Canon city.

See the depths of Eagle River Canyon, the 3% climb to Tennessee Pass (and a train with 10 locomotives), Colorado's highest peaks, the Arkansas River Canyon, and the Royal Gorge. This spectacular railroad may now be silent, but the trains still roar on your TV! From Railway Productions.

Color Stereo 90 minutes. DVD contains chapter menus.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• D&RGW
• Tennessee
• Pass
• Union
• Pacific
• SP
• Southern
• UPRR

[N330AA]

Christ, a 3% grade must be absolute murder on a coal train.

[ColoradoRailroads1]

Your site has this under Southern Pacific, but it's historically Rio Grande territory. Wouldn't it be a good idea to list this under Rio Grande (also/instead?)

[southparkline1]

The Union Pacific ran a train west of Parkdale (end of the Royal Gorge Route) onto the inactive mainlineto retrieve some coal cars stored near Cotopaxi yesterday! There may be another train in the coming days to retrieve more cars. Any activity west of Parkdale and East of Gypsum is very exciting. Still not one train has run west of Malta or Eat of Minturn since 1997. :(

[msk578]

The line is still there, but it is considered inactive. There are hundreds of hopper cars stored along the line north of Royal Gorge and through Bighorn Sheep Canyon. The line remains silent from Cotopaxi through Salida through Buena Vista all the way up to where it meets the very active line near Dotsero. You'll still see all the signals (both crossing and block signals) still up, just all turned off.

Of course the Royal Gorge Route still uses the section between the Gorge and Canon City.

[BNforever2009]

that would be nice to see if the trains would still run on that line

[richywind]

this service and the whole train sucks. bad experience looks like people agree with me

[Espeelover]

Who narrated?

[southparkline1]

Well sorry to burst some peoples bubble but the line is not maintained well. The most the UP does is clear brush with hi rail vehicles. One of the reasons they closed it was because the rail needed to be replaced so instead of repairing they moved the few trains that ran on it to the Moffat Route. The farthest they can run trains is to the end of the royal gorge and to Avon. A lot of track work has to be done for it to be put back in service but I wish they did.

[spacecalander]

why did they close the pass anyway?

[MilwaukeeSDman]

If they do reopen it maybe Amtrak can run a train on the line