As the concept of the NYC Transit Museum sponsored holiday trains enters their second decade they have had to do some innovation as running a set of R1/9's between 2nd Ave and Queens Plaza started getting a bit repetitive. The first set of changes involved different routes such as going up Central Park West to 135th or 145th Streets, but as the ultimate retirement of the R32 cars approached, the powers that be decided to give the "obviously vintage" R1/9 cars a year off and substitute in the R32's for holiday duty running on the 2nd Ave to 145th St CPW routing. Of course a change to the itinerary meant I felt required to make the trek up from South Jersey to ride them and you can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).
My day started early at Hamilton where I passed on an NJT Corridor Line local pushed by ALP-46 #4635 in favor of an express led by split level cab car #7013.
PATH's long headways now makes it quicker to just go directly to Penn Station wher I caught an R46 A train to West 4th Street.
While waiting for an F to 2nd Ave I noted that W 4TH ST tower has closed since my last visit in December 2019.
I also caught the R32 holiday train heading north on the lower level, likely having traveled from Coney Island and needing to make a reverse move to get to 2nd Ave.
An R160 F Train soon arrived on the local track and transported me to 2nd Ave where the r32 holiday train soon arrived with southward leading car #3360 modified by the transit museum to resemble its as-delivered 1964 condition.
Northward leading car #3894 was equipped with a wreath and signed as a "D" train for the day's service.
In 2021, although I had already been to Denver once, my friend had some expiring airline benefits and we decided to go again before the end of the year. This time we looked at a map and figured we could visit the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park, which, during the winter months, is not directly accessible from the eastern side that we had previously visited in 2020. Although both sides of the park are kinda blah in winter, a trip to the western side would take my party past the Moffat Tunnel route Amtrak stations of Granby and Fraser-Winter Park. In addition to those railfanning opportunities, I also had the occasion to ride the Denver RTD Light Rail "W" line that is often recommended for its great scenery. You can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).
Starting out in Granby it was some time before either California Zephyr Trains 5 or 6 would pass, so I figured I would just grab some photos of the station and platform.
Suddenly from out of the blue, an eastbound Union Pacific manifest train appeared with AC4400 #6303, AC4400 #7225 and SD70ACe #3059 in the front and AC's4400 #7047 and #7206 pushing on the rear.
A new Granby station building had been recently built, but was not yet open for passengers.
Although the Winter Park ski resort has its own station for Ski Train use, regular Amtrak Trains 5 and 6 use the stop at Fraser, CO, about 4 miles to the south.
Although the detached station building is a bit hum drum, it has the coolest door art of any Amtrak station.
As train #6 approached, a pair of kids appeared with a cart selling $1 drinks and snacks. Apparently the concession is passed down from one family to another as the children age out.
The engineer on Amtrak P42DC #22 gave the kids some horn as Train 6 pulled into the station.
P42DC #22 was paired up with P42DC #152.
Fraser-Winter Park, like Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs is an extended "smoking" stop due to the amount of time it takes to cross western Colorado.
With a clear signal at EE FRASER Amtrak Train 6 departed, sounding the horn for Eisenhower Ave. At over 8500 feet, these engines are working hard on the ascending grade to the Moffat Tunnel summit located at over 9000 feet.
Jumping back to Denver, I caught a train of RTD SD100/160 LRVs on the towntown loop at the 16th and California station with #214 and United wrapped #218.
Union Station was seeing quite a bit more action with Silverliner V trains on the A, B, G and N routings now terminating there. When I walked through early on a Sunday morning, a single married pair with #4037 was sitting on track 8 I think waiting for a B Line departure to Westminster.
My plan was to catch an 'E' Line train to Auraria Station and then change to a 'W' Line train there. I arrived at the light rail part of Union Station just in time for an 'E' route train to leave as I stepped up.
Here is the 'E' line LRV that I eventually caught. #285 was leading two others.
RTD LRV's #333, #288, #310 and #219 at Auraria.
Some of the 'W' Line scenery crossing US Route 6 west of downtown.
RTD LRV #319 and #232 at the terminus of the 'W' Line at the Golden-Jefferson County station before departing back towards downtown Denver.
In addition to all of the rail vehicles there were lots and lots of Mule Deer.
Back at the airport I got another head end video from the Denver International Airport peoplemover.
And that wraps it up for my 2021 holiday season trip to Denver. I hope you all enjoyed the photos. Next week I'll be back with some content of R32 subbing in for the usual holiday train.
For the past 8 years I have been using my annual trip to Chicago to collect railfan window video footage from inbound peak period express runs on Metra, the local commuter rail system. 2021 would be no different and my target for the trip would be a run on the Milwaukee North Line between Deerfield and Union station with a single stop at Western Ave. After I was at Union Station I walked down to get some photos from the Roosevelt Ave overpass. You can view the foll gallery here ( mirror ).
The Mayfair Station is adjacent to the famous 2x3 diamond crossing with the Chicago Northwestern, currently the Metra CNW-Northwest Line. While waiting at the station an inbound Metra train led by gallery cab car #8548 arrived ontrack #1 just before my outbound local showed up with F40PH-3 #115 in the lead.
On the outbound trip my local passed additional inbound trains including one with Metra F59PHI #92 near Glenview and an Amtrak Hiawatha service train with SC44 #4608.
Getting off at Deerfield here is a photo of the outbound shelter with my Gallery type cab car #8510.
My inbound Gallery cab car would be #8531.
If you could like to watch the video of this entire inbound express run you can watch it here.
On my inbound run my train encountered outbound local with MP36PH-3C #421, the Mayfair diamond with MP36PH-3C #411 and the now closed TOWER A-5.
In past decades, the Sunday after thanksgiving was Amtrak's biggest travel day with thousands of holiday travelers returning home in order to be at work on Monday morning. Amtrak would pull out all the stops with extra trains, some even using leased commuter rail equipment, and almost all of them selling out. Unfortunately in recent years Amtrak has abandoned their commitment to getting people off of I-95 with the leased trains cut along with most of the extras. Part of this was institutional, with the executive in charge of assembling the program retiring. Part of it was due to the COVID pandemic reducing general holiday travel for a second straight year. However much of the new mindset was from a focus on managing demand through pricing. Moving extra riders wasn't worth the cost of running extra trains when it was easier to sell the regular trains out with higher fares. This brings us to Thanksgiving Sunday, 2001 where the sole component of Amtrak's special holiday schedule was a single extra Regional round trip. Since I needed content I made the drive over to the Halethorpe MARC station to catch it and whatever other trains might be in the vicinity. You can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).
Normally I would build up to the climactic arrival of Regional Extra #1164, but that day it was actually the first train I caught passing through Halethorpe. The northbound train had 10 Amfleets and was propelled by ACS-86 #623.
This was soon followed by the the standard Train 164 with ACS-86 #656 leading.
As luck would have it, Train 164 arrived just in time to meet southbound Cardinal Train #51 with ACS-86 #605 leading three Amfleet II coaches, a Viewlier Sleeper and a new Viewlier II bag-dorm.
