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BLET Division #256 |
Joint Line HistoryAfter serving in the Civil War as a Colonel, "General" William Jackson Palmer worked as surveyor for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, which was building a line westward from Kansas City to Colorado. On its west end "General" Palmer felt the railroad should be built along the Arkansas River to Pueblo, but his superiors instead built the railroad to Denver. Undaunted, as soon as the new K.P. Railroad reached Denver (in Sept. 187O), Mr. Palmer incorporated his Denver & Rio Grande with plans to build a railroad from Denver to El Paso (and on to Mexico City, fully 125 years before NAFTA). The D&RG reached Pueblo in June, 1872, albeit 3-foot narrow gauge. Cyrus K. Holliday's Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. was building west from Atchison, Kansas, generally following the old Santa Fe Trail, with an extension reaching Pueblo March 1, 1876 to tap rich Colorado timber and mineral traffic. Business from the east going to Denver had to be transloaded into narrow gauge cars to continue on to Denver over the D&RG. After the D&RG/ATSF battles over Raton Pass and Royal Gorge, Santa Fe decided it needed its own line north from Pueblo to Denver. It built its own line to Denver, reaching there on Oct. 1, 1887. The hostile D&RG resented the parallel competitor and told the Santa Fe it could not cross its line at any point. Hence, the "flyover" overpasses at Fountain, Spruce and Sedalia. Just before the turn of the century, another railroad was expanding southward from Denver toward New Orleans, known as the Denver & New Orleans. It built far east of Front Range communities (8 mi. east of Colo. Spgs.). Business was poor, it went bankrupt, and Santa Fe began handling its business between Denver and Pueblo. The first Joint Line Contract was signed between D&NO successor C&S and the ATSF on April 1, 1900, giving the district its new Joint Line name. The D&RG was not a part of the "Joint Line" name. During World War I, America's railroads were taken over by the United States Railroad Administration. It was appalled by the congestion of trains between Denver and Pueblo, with each railroad operating trains both ways on its own line. USRA decided there should be one track for northward trains, one track for southward trains, and hence ordered the realignment of tracks at the overhead passes at Fountain, Spruce and Sedalia, creating one track for northward trains, one for southward trains (directional operations). Santa Fe's track northward through Colorado Springs was a nuisance to citizens, and in 1971 an agreement was reached with the D&RGW to use its track between Kelker and Palmer Lake for all trains in both directions, with CTC. Santa Fe dispatchers won the right to dispatch trains. Since the merger of the BN and ATSF Railways in 1995, there is no further need for a "Joint Line Contract." It is all one BNSF Company now. -- By Steve Patterson |
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