Catastrophic floods across the High Plains have shredded Union Pacific’s Kansas Pacific line, sweeping away miles of track and leaving not a single bridge intact between Denver and Limon. And so on June 26, 1965, work crews and pile driver 903113 are working on the West Bijou Creek trestle near Byers, Colorado. UP’s regular traffic is detouring via Cheyenne, and Rock Island, which uses UP into Denver, is following a roundabout route from Limon to Colorado Springs and then up the Joint Line. It will be several weeks before normal operations resume.
