Colorado Rockies Questions

I booked a roomette for next week, riding from Denver to Glenwood Springs.
Three questions:
First, do the tracks run through very remote areas? I assume they do.
Second and third, they run pretty slow, of course. How many locomotives do they run per train, and do they run them at full throttle for much of the trip?
Thanks.

Denver Dude wrote: ↑Thu Dec 03, 2020 8:04 pm I booked a roomette for next week, riding from Denver to Glenwood Springs.
Three questions:
First, do the tracks run through very remote areas? I assume they do.
Second and third, they run pretty slow, of course. How many locomotives do they run per train, and do they run them at full throttle for much of the trip?
Thanks.

Yes, the tracks are very remote after leaving the Denver suburbs.
At least two locomotives pull the train through the mountains.
Climbing uphill the locomotives are working hard, going downhill not so much.

It will take me a while to figure out the best format, but I will post the USGS topo maps (1:250,000) covering the historic D&RGW from Denver to Salt Lake City, so you can see the lay of the ground.

There are two or three long stretches with no road crossings or nearby roads, one on they way up to the Moffat Tunnel, one along the Colorado River.

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Thu Dec 03, 2020 9:28 pm It will take me a while to figure out the best format, but I will post the USGS topo maps (1:250,000) covering the historic D&RGW from Denver to Salt Lake City, so you can see the lay of the ground.

No need, John, here is a link to access historic USGS maps online: https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/topoexplorer/index.html

You can search Denver, Moffat Tunnel, and Glenwood Springs to pretty easily trace the railroad through the mountains.

Thanks for your responses. I realize that Amtrak needs to generate hotel power along the way, unlike freight trains, but it always surprises me about the amount of power they use for such short and light trains.

Denver Dude wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 10:23 am Thanks for your responses. I realize that Amtrak needs to generate hotel power along the way, unlike freight trains, but it always surprises me about the amount of power they use for such short and light trains.

Part of that is hotel power, yes; part is due to the Genesis fleet of locomotives being spread thin and used hard to the point of unreliability; part is because the Superliner cars are actually pretty heavy (close to 100 tons apiece) and this route has heavy grades. Doesn’t help that the P42 Genesis fleet is geared for 110 mph when the large majority of their service is at a maximum of 79 mph.

On routes where there’s maintenance bases nearby and the maximum speed is 79, Amtrak will happily send a single Genesis out with 7 or 8 Amfleet cars at about 65 tons apiece.

Wow, I didn't realize that the Superliner cars were that heavy, but it makes sense. I am surprised about the effects of running them hard. I guess locomotives designed for passenger service aren't as robust as those used in freight service.

Those weights above are a bit off.

Empty weight of Horizons and Amfleets are around 50-55t, Viewliners 65t, a standard Heritage single level dome 75t, and a Superliner 80t. I don't have Siemens weights but would guess they're comparable to the Horizon and Amfleets.

Add another 7.5t per car for pax, bags, water and other provisions (average of 200lbs x 75 pax). That's probably on the high end in general when trains are running well below prior year load factors.

So yeah, there's a definite weight penalty on the Superliner when you look at ridership stats. That extra weight isn't consistently offset by higher revenue or passengers carried. I'd say it's rarely offset.

That's yet another reason why I've been a proponent for going back to a single level fleet for long distance, which seems more and more likely with time.

Huh, I could have sworn the Superliners were in the 190,000 lb range, not 165,000, and the Amfleets around 130,000 lbs rather than 110,000.

My opinion is that Amtrak should look into gallery car coaches (the Nippon Sharyo-Sumitomo gallery cars are a bare 125,000 lbs) to go along with single-level sleepers. But, that’s neither here nor there when we are discussing Colorado scenery.

You might be thinking fully loaded. Empty weights are as follows:

Superliner I coach 157k  78.5t
Superliner II coach 151k  75.5t
Superliner I sleeper 167k  83.5t
Superliner II sleeper 160k  80t
Superliner II deluxe 161k  80.5t
Superliner I lounge 160k  80t
Superliner II lounge 150k  75t
Superliner I diner 174k  87t
Superliner II diner 158k  79t


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Rode west bound Cal Z out of Denver when it was hauling road railers. We had 3 P-42s on point. Well shortly out of Devr Denver second unit failed and the 3rd unit failed near big ten. Engineer shut off HEP and we struggled up to Moffat tunnel at about somewhat less than 5 MPH where HEP was then restored. Arrived at Glenwood with all 3 units finally restored. Why unknown?

Some rail fan went to new conductor and mentioned the failures and wondered if there might be problems climbing the hill at Helper. Railfan Was told he did not know what he was talking about. You can guess it. We stalled and engineer could not get the 2 trailing units to restart. UP offered to help push us up hill but no pushing the roadrailers. How we got up hill unknown as I was asleep but did not leave SLC until sometime after 0700.

SLC crew not notified that we were very late so had to get a relief UP crew somewhere west of SLC at about 1300 local time. Amtrak engineer stayed in lead loco and conductor became some kind of train director to his layover location.

Interesting. I'm a little confused - Amtrak was also hauling roadrailers?

Considering that the Mail & Express initiative ended during '05, and not knowing how long Mr. Dude has followed Amtrak affairs, it is still quite believable that a Member, who signed up during '12, was unaware of such.

That was a good ride. There were 7 cars and two locomotives. I take it one was for the rail and one was for HEP. Do they always run the unit that moves the train as the first locomotive, or not always? i assume they could run the HEP unit first and control the 2nd locomotive from the front. Not sure why they would. In Denver the 2nd locomotive was running much harder in the station. I assume that for the electrical power. One thing cool as that during hill climbs I could see the smoke and hear the power even though I was several cars back.