25-08-16 PHOTOS: Glenwood Springs

People might best know the town of Glenwood Springs, CO as that extra long stop on Amtrak's California Zephyr, but there's a reason for the extra long platform and the generally high level of activity. Glenwood Springs is the locus of a non-winter tourism district that aincludes an amusement park, natural scenery and actual hot springs, not the type that just keep one's wagon train from dying. Glenwood Springs is also served by the privately operated Rocky Mountaineer, which preserves the concept of railroad promoted tourism practiced by the Denver, Rio Grande and Western.  During a 2025 trip to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park I managed to manipulate the itinerary to include a stop at the Glenwood Springs Amtrak station in time for the arrival of westbound Zephyr Train 5. Also included in the set are additional photos of the semi-abandoned Tennessee Pass Line near Leadville. 

The Glenwood Springs station was constructed in 1904 by the DRGW. It's size and opulence was a direct function of it catering to the upper class tourism market in a similar fashion to the Great Northern station in Whitefish, Montana. At the time western railroads played a large role in promoting tourist destinations as a method to see better returns from their passenger operations that would otherwise see little travel in the sparsely populated western United States. It is currently the second least least used station in Colorado behind Denver.

The original interior has been preserved with both an active ticket office, baggage service and an interior waiting room.

The Rocky Mountaineer maintains its own private waiting room for its ultra luxury offering. Passengers can either travel between Glenwood Springs and Denver or overnight at Glenwood Springs before continuing on to Moab.

Even on days when the Mountaineer isn't running, local hotels will continue to send shuttle vans to meet Amtrak Trains 5 and 6.

Westbound Amtrak California Zephyr Train 5 was running no more than the typical hour late with a trio of P42DC's providing power.

Amtrak P42DC #37 was leading with #22 and #14 behind.

 

25-08-09 PHOTOS: One For the Road

In August of 2025 there was a lot of change afoot in the northeast from new Acelas, to new infrastructure to new NYCT Subway rolling stock.  An invitation to visit the International Photography Museum in Manhattan gave me the opportunity to catch a lot of this change in progress and ostensibly say farewell to many long time staples of the region (even if the actual retirement dates were still one or more years in the future). 

This was going to be a single day trip so my day started quite early at the BWI Airport Rail station where ACS-86 was leading my 6am Regional train to New York City.

The track #1 platform at BWI was in the midst of a partial reconstruction. 

Passing by the Penn Coach Yards were for Acela NG trainsets were awaiting their entry into service later that month,.

The Acela NG power cars are numbered in the 2100-series like #2133 seen here.

The new Amtrak Hackensack River bridge as seen from the 1910 PORTAL movable bridge. All structural work had been completed on the new crossing and work had shifted to completing the trackbed, overhead catenary and signaling. 

Despite platform access issues, the new Penn Station train hall has been a pretty resounding success since it opened. 

A brand new R211 on the A. The International Photography Museum was located near the Essex Street station which meant a fairly simple transfer to an F at W. 4th St.

Unfortunately a service disruption/weekend change forced me to take a D train to Grand St instead. Here a pair of north and southbound D trains meet at West 4th. 

The reason for the service disruption became evident on the return trip when I found work equipment blocking the local track at West 4th. The equipment included R47 #67, R41 #59 and deicing car #RD439. The locomotives were built by General Electric in 1968 and 1975 as extensions of their popular 45-ton series.