In 1967, Chicago Burlington & Quincy‘s 114-mile Alliance to Sterling line is not at all what it will become in just a few years, when the flood of coal from the Powder River Basin starts moving ... (more)

The 1968 holiday rush is already underway on November 2, as Chicago Burlington & Quncy S2 9300 drags a long cut of mail storage and express cars out of Denver Union Station. In the early 1940s as ... (more)

On the last day of 1966, Burlington’s Longmont local out of Denver trundles along north of Broomfield, as faithful and reliable as an old dog. Led by SD9s 326 and 363, cars for cement loading, p... (more)

This is the face of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy in 1966 – proudly competent and committed to the best possible passenger service. On April 9, the first section of the Denver Zephyr has paus... (more)

Late afternoons in the summer of 1966, the place to watch the parade of passenger trains out of Denver Union Station is the 23rd Street viaduct. The sun has swung around to the west, catching Unio... (more)

On March 27, 1966, CB&Q and D&RGW are pooling motive power west of Denver, which accounts for the presence of Q 953, a GP30 leading an all-GP30 consist, climbing into the Rockies at a location ass... (more)

Mid-mornings, Burlington’s 23rd Street engine terminal in Denver gets busy. Freight power is in from the east and has to be fueled and serviced, and passenger power must be made ready for the va... (more)

In mid-summer, 1966, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy train number 10, the Denver Zephyr, remains the most successful passenger operation to and from Denver, beating out even Union Pacific’s feet of... (more)

This was the engine of my youth, CB&Q’s handsome O-5 Class Northern, which I watched from my grandmother’s backyard in Denver’s Globeville section. And just about the time I thought I would... (more)

Two SD9s, Burlington’s locomotive of choice on its Wyoming lines, set out across the North Platte River from the quiet town of Guernsey on a warm October afternoon in 1964 with a short freight f... (more)

Gallumping off the turntable at Colorado & Southern’s Rice Yard in Denver, the 4960 looks like a workaday steam locomotive, heading out for a day’s labor. But the date is October 17, 1963, and... (more)

Minutes out of Denver Union Station, Burlington 9988A sweeps past the 38th Street yard office with Number 10, the Denver Zephyr. It’s mid-January, 1965, and though the sun has barely set behind ... (more)

The motive power is pure Pennsylvania, but those are the Rockies not the Appalachians in the background, and we in Denver, watching CB&Q train 66 ease out of the 38th Street yard for Chicago. In 1... (more)

A pair of SD9’s idle away a Sunday afternoon at Burlington’s Sterling, Colorado, engine house. The CB&Q bought 80 SD9’s, more than any other road except SP, and they are the mainstay of loca... (more)

Burlington’s CD, the Chicago-Denver fast freight, makes the swing at the west end of Denver’s 38th Street Yard, and soon will cross the South Platte River and head up the long grade to Rio Gra... (more)