Massive floods along Colorado’s Front Range ten days ago closed almost all rail access into Denver. And so June 17,1965, finds this Rock Island piggyback grinding up the just-reopened Rio Grande-Santa Fe Joint Line to from Monument to Palmer Lake, instead of rolling toward the Mile High City as usual on Union Pacific’s Limon subdivision. The all-geep foursome behind GP9 1314 is barely crawling, and numerous slow orders lie ahead over track repairs that are still fresh. It will be long after dark before this train, which has come from Limon via Rock Island’s Colorado Spring’s branch, will creep through Denver to Rio Grande’s North Yard.
