Post by SD39dash2 on Jan 10, 2015 12:43:50 GMT -5
When I was growing up in the 80s, there existed a little slice of the BN along Buchtel Blvd. in Denver. I'm not sure if I ever saw a train using the line, but it was interesting enough that as I inquired about it, I found out that it used to be a main line between Denver and Pueblo. That led me to a book by James R. Jones called Denver & New Orleans: In the Shadow of the Rockies, which told the story of the little railroad from start to finish.
Now, my own modeling is driven by a lot of Denver locations that have morphed into something other than the rail facilities they used to be, so I'm always trying to think of ways to represent them, and at the top of the list are Rice Yard and the line up Buchtel Blvd., both of which were originally D&NO properties.
I could have modeled all of this as Colorado & Southern and kept it to the late 70s, but I would lose a good reason to keep Rice Yard open (since the C&S moved everything to the CB&Q shops at 23rd Street), and the C&S deal with the Santa Fe to relocate traffic to the joint line made a lot more sense than going via Elizabeth and Falcon. I needed an alternative history that would explain how the D&NO rose from the ashes of the C&S activities at the start of the 20th Century, and became a reasonably successful railroad that grew into an important shipping route.
What I ended up with goes something like this: After the creation of the C&S in 1898, a small group of investors from the midwest started watching the activities in Colorado, and figured the original D&NO could have been a better railroad had it been built more directly towards its southern namesake. Knowing that it couldn't be done without the Fort Worth & Denver, they started buying heavily into the railroad, and by the time the Burlington took over the C&S in 1908, it no longer included the FW&D.
While this was going on, the remains of the line from Cherry Creek south to Manitou Junction was also purchased and rebuilding of the line with better track components and bridges had started. Everything followed the original grade until Elbert, where a long bridge was constructed to cross Kiowa Creek and generally keep the line elevated enough to ease the downgrade below 2 percent. After that the mainline turned southeast and generally followed the path of the KP, albeit at some distance.
The line went as far south as Guymon, OK before it became a FW&D property. This was to do with Texas law that stated a railroad running in the state had to be headquartered within the state. The D&NO solution was to pay for the construction of the line knowing it would belong to the FW&D. That part of the line ran south along the east side of the panhandle and met up with the existing road at Childress, TX.
That was the railroad until the late 70s. Most of the traffic was being bridged south to Galveston or New Orleans, though Powder River coal was starting to make its way over the line and fast pig trains were another decent source of revenue. What changed was the impending bankruptcy of the Rock Island. When The Rock collapsed in 1980, the D&NO pounced on part of the Choctaw Route, taking over between Tucumcari, NM and Oklahoma City, OK, and taking part of the Colorado Springs-Omaha line as far as Belleville, KS. They also purchased the connection from Belleville to Kansas City.
Meanwhile, they had also bought a sizable portion of the Frisco (which makes sense in this alt history as they are geographically positioned to take advantage of the connection), essentially doubling the size of the railroad overnight, and giving them a third access point to the Gulf at Pensacola, FL. They also took over the section of the Texas & Pacific between Ft. Worth and New Orleans to complete the route, making a divide between the D&NO and FW&D at Shreveport, LA.
The road was also getting into the locomotive business at Rice Yard in Denver. The shops there had been modernized and they started earning extra revenue by contracting servicing and rebuilding for other railroads in addition to keeping the D&NO fleet in good shape. This changed with the Rock Island and Frisco purchases and the decision was made to relocate regular servicing to El Reno, OK as it was more centrally located in the new system. The Rice shops would focus solely on outside work and any full overhauls for the D&NO.
So, that gets the Denver & New Orleans into the modern era. I’ll probably focus on the Denver area part of the road, but looking at all of the locations of this would-be system makes me think that the bit between El Reno and OKC would make a nice little layout as well, as would the old facilities in KC, which are similar in layout to Rice yard. There are a lot of possibilities with something like this. If I applied this to Free-Mo, I could fill a gymnasium!
Here's a map of the system.
Now, my own modeling is driven by a lot of Denver locations that have morphed into something other than the rail facilities they used to be, so I'm always trying to think of ways to represent them, and at the top of the list are Rice Yard and the line up Buchtel Blvd., both of which were originally D&NO properties.
I could have modeled all of this as Colorado & Southern and kept it to the late 70s, but I would lose a good reason to keep Rice Yard open (since the C&S moved everything to the CB&Q shops at 23rd Street), and the C&S deal with the Santa Fe to relocate traffic to the joint line made a lot more sense than going via Elizabeth and Falcon. I needed an alternative history that would explain how the D&NO rose from the ashes of the C&S activities at the start of the 20th Century, and became a reasonably successful railroad that grew into an important shipping route.
What I ended up with goes something like this: After the creation of the C&S in 1898, a small group of investors from the midwest started watching the activities in Colorado, and figured the original D&NO could have been a better railroad had it been built more directly towards its southern namesake. Knowing that it couldn't be done without the Fort Worth & Denver, they started buying heavily into the railroad, and by the time the Burlington took over the C&S in 1908, it no longer included the FW&D.
While this was going on, the remains of the line from Cherry Creek south to Manitou Junction was also purchased and rebuilding of the line with better track components and bridges had started. Everything followed the original grade until Elbert, where a long bridge was constructed to cross Kiowa Creek and generally keep the line elevated enough to ease the downgrade below 2 percent. After that the mainline turned southeast and generally followed the path of the KP, albeit at some distance.
The line went as far south as Guymon, OK before it became a FW&D property. This was to do with Texas law that stated a railroad running in the state had to be headquartered within the state. The D&NO solution was to pay for the construction of the line knowing it would belong to the FW&D. That part of the line ran south along the east side of the panhandle and met up with the existing road at Childress, TX.
That was the railroad until the late 70s. Most of the traffic was being bridged south to Galveston or New Orleans, though Powder River coal was starting to make its way over the line and fast pig trains were another decent source of revenue. What changed was the impending bankruptcy of the Rock Island. When The Rock collapsed in 1980, the D&NO pounced on part of the Choctaw Route, taking over between Tucumcari, NM and Oklahoma City, OK, and taking part of the Colorado Springs-Omaha line as far as Belleville, KS. They also purchased the connection from Belleville to Kansas City.
Meanwhile, they had also bought a sizable portion of the Frisco (which makes sense in this alt history as they are geographically positioned to take advantage of the connection), essentially doubling the size of the railroad overnight, and giving them a third access point to the Gulf at Pensacola, FL. They also took over the section of the Texas & Pacific between Ft. Worth and New Orleans to complete the route, making a divide between the D&NO and FW&D at Shreveport, LA.
The road was also getting into the locomotive business at Rice Yard in Denver. The shops there had been modernized and they started earning extra revenue by contracting servicing and rebuilding for other railroads in addition to keeping the D&NO fleet in good shape. This changed with the Rock Island and Frisco purchases and the decision was made to relocate regular servicing to El Reno, OK as it was more centrally located in the new system. The Rice shops would focus solely on outside work and any full overhauls for the D&NO.
So, that gets the Denver & New Orleans into the modern era. I’ll probably focus on the Denver area part of the road, but looking at all of the locations of this would-be system makes me think that the bit between El Reno and OKC would make a nice little layout as well, as would the old facilities in KC, which are similar in layout to Rice yard. There are a lot of possibilities with something like this. If I applied this to Free-Mo, I could fill a gymnasium!
Here's a map of the system.
