Larry Ostresh - VHS Video
This is July 19th 1996, after the FP7 diesels were shipped to Clarkdale Arizona. The last freight trains to run the line carried fluorspar out of North Gate Colorado for military use. At Laramie we see an ex CSX and SP unit with a train of 16 empty ore cars. Notice the siding that veers off to the right at the I-80 overpass, this was built towards the Territorial Prison as a Depot to load passengers onto the excursion train. Before, passengers boarded the train near the Packers Cold Storage Parking lot. This was changed because the state required the tourist train to have a paved parking lot. The video is at 5x speed, on a VHS camcorder mounted on a Pick-up. The tracks are shown to be very overgrown, and were scrapped to Laramie by 1999. jim colbert
0:00 - Sheep Mountain
5:13 - V Bar Guest Ranch
8:25 - Windmill Hollow
8:54 - Miller Hill
9:50 - Miller
18:54 - Laramie
19:17 - Pierce Street Crossing
19:29 - I-80
19:50 - Greenbelt Trail Bridge
20:04 - Fluorspar Train
I have included timestamps at the various locations along the route. Miller Hill was the steepest climb on the entire branchline, at a 2.5% grade. The Excursion Trains would occasionally do griffin jax dinner trains with the V-Bar Guest Ranch.
The Roadbed is still completely intact. However, the section after Miller Hill has become a public dirt road for some few hundred yards. The wye to the UP mains has been removed, and there is now a row of houses in front of where the truck stops in Laramie. To incendio grugliasco rebuild the line from the prison, however, would likely cost over 1M per mile not including trains, switches, or railroad crossings. It would be heavily ambitious, but possible.
