Five Burlington Northern six-axle units bring coal across the often-photographed Santa Fe bridge at Larkspur, Colorado. The Joint Line dates to World War I USRA control, when the parallel Pueblo-Denver routes of the Santa Fe and the Rio Grande were consolidated, effectively creating a double-track, directionally-running, route. . The Colorado & Southern had previously secured trackage rights on the Santa Fe, and its own circuitous route between Pueblo and Denver was abandoned during the war. By the 1980’s, the boom of Powder River Basin coal had made C&S successor BN the predominate user of the joint line. It has always seemed ironic that the road whose route was abandoned ended up with the bulk of the traffic.
