In 1966, there were only two ways into remote Rock Creek Canyon, between Crater and Volcano on Rio Grande’s Craig Branch in northwestern Colorado. One was to hike along the track from the nearest crossing, a considerable distance. The other was to ride Train 10, the Yampa Valley, and arrange for a photo stop. Which is what members of the Intermountain Chapter of the NRHS have done this fine morning in late winter. PA-1 6003 heads the usual consist – baggage car and two dome-chair cars, plus Car 96, an 1886-built onetime CB&Q business car that the Chapter acquired in 1962. (The 96 now rests on display in the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden.) Construction here was the most expensive along the David Moffat’s Denver Northwestern & Pacific, costing $250,000 a mile and foreclosing the road’s hopes of ever reaching the Pacific in its title.
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
