page_title: Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad
section_title: "Fast Freights" and the California Zephyr, 1950–1983
hierarchical_section_title: Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad / History / "Fast Freights" and the California Zephyr, 1950–1983
caption_attribution_description: Postcard photo of the California Zephyr on Denver &amp; Rio Grande trackage along the Colorado River in Western Colorado. In this segment of the journey, the train was headed by Denver and Rio Grande locomotives.
context_page_description: The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, often shortened to Rio Grande, D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado, in 1870. It served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.
  The Rio Grande was the epitome of mountain railroading, with a motto of Through the Rockies, not around them and later Main line through the Rockies, both referring to the Rocky Mountains.
  The D&RGW operated the highest mainline rail line in the United States, over the 10,240 feet Tennessee Pass in Colorado, and the famed routes through the Moffat Tunnel and the Royal Gorge. At its height in the mid-1880s, the D&RG had the largest narrow-gauge railroad network in North America with 2,783 miles of track interconnecting the states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Known for its independence, the D&RGW operated the Rio Grande Zephyr until its discontinuation in 1983.
context_section_description: Finally free from financial problems, the D&RGW now possessed a direct route from Denver to Salt Lake City (the detour south through Pueblo and Tennessee Pass was no longer required for direct service), but a problem still remained: for transcontinental service, the Union Pacific's more northerly line was far less mountainous (and, as a result, several hours faster). The D&RGW's solution was its "fast freight" philosophy, which employed multiple diesel locomotives pulling short, frequent trains. This philosophy helps to explain why the D&RGW, despite its proximity to one of the nation's most productive coal mining regions, retired coal-fueled steam locomotives as quickly as new, replacement diesels could be purchased. By 1956, the D&RGW's standard-gauge steam locomotives had been retired and scrapped. The reason for this was that unlike steam locomotives, diesel locomotives could easily be combined, using the diesels' multiple unit capabilities, to equip each train with the optimum horsepower which was needed to meet the D&RGW's aggressive schedule.
  The D&RGW's sense of its unique geographical challenge found expression in the form of the California Zephyr, a passenger train which was jointly operated with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) from Chicago to Denver, the D&RGW from Denver to Salt Lake City, and the Western Pacific Railroad from Salt Lake City to Oakland, California (with ferry and bus connections to San Francisco). Unable to compete with the Union Pacific's faster, less mountainous route and 39-hour schedules, the California Zephyr offered a more leisurely journey – a "rail cruise" – with ample vistas of the Rockies. Although the California Zephyr ran at full capacity and turned a modest profit from its 1949 inception through the late 1950s, by the mid-1960s the train was profitable only during the late spring, summer, and fall. In 1970, Western Pacific, claiming multimillion-dollar losses, dropped out. However, the D&RGW refused to join the national Amtrak system, and continued to operate its share of the Zephyr equipment as the Rio Grande Zephyr between Denver and Salt Lake City. By 1983, however, citing continued losses in revenue, the D&RGW decided to get out of the passenger business altogether and join Amtrak. With this move, Amtrak rerouted the San Francisco Zephyr to the Moffat Road line and rebranded it as the current incarnation of the California Zephyr.
  Even as the D&RGW exploited the best new standard-gauge technology to compete with other transcontinental carriers, the railroad continued to operate the surviving steam-powered narrow-gauge lines, including the famed narrow-gauge line between Durango and Silverton, Colorado. Most of the remaining narrow-gauge trackage was abandoned in the 1950s and 1960s.  At the end of 1970 it operated 1,903 miles (3,063 km) of road on 3,227 miles (5,193 km) of track; that year it carried 7733 ton-miles of revenue freight and 21 million passenger-miles.
  Two of the most scenic routes survived in operation by the D&RGW until they were sold to tourist railroad operators.  The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad assumed operation of the line between Antonito, Colorado, and Chama, New Mexico, in 1970. The last D&RGW narrow-gauge line, from Durango to Silverton, was sold in 1981 to the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, exactly one hundred years after the line went into operation.
caption: The California Zephyr pulled by D&RGW locomotives along the Colorado River in Western Colorado.
exif: {}