The Colorado Joint Line is a railway corridor in

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

running north-south between

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

and

Pueblo Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlement ...

. Presently the tracks are owned by the

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...

and the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

and operated jointly.

History

The first set of tracks in the area were laid by the

Denver and Rio Grande Railroad The Denver and 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 narrow-gauge line running south fro ...

in 1871. The

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

laid their tracks parallel to the D&RG in 1888. In 1900 the

Colorado and Southern The Colorado and Southern Railway was an American Class I railroad in the western United States that operated independently from 1898 to 1908, then as part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad until it was absorbed into the Burlin ...

negotiated a trackage rights agreement to run its trains over the AT&SF line. In 1918 during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

the

United States Railroad Administration The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) was the name of the nationalisation, nationalized railroad system of the United States between December 28, 1917, and March 1, 1920. It was the largest American experiment with nationalization, and ...

dictated that the parallel D&RG and AT&SF lines be operated as a single double-track railroad, with the eastern track carrying all northbound trains, and the western track carrying all southbound traffic. That efficient arrangement continued after the end of the War and right up to the present day.

Operation

The line consists of the paired right of ways of the two companies, with ownership being non-continuous since the lines originally crossed over each other three times between Denver and Pueblo at Sedalia, Spruce, and Crews. These cross-overs were later eliminated, creating a continuous northbound main track on the east, and southbound track on the west. In 1974 the segment between Palmer Lake and Crews was converted to a bi-directional single track mainline (D&RGW ownership Palmer to Kelker, AT&SF ownership Kelker to Crews). The Union Pacific, which acquired the D&RGW in 1996, designates the Joint Line as their Colorado Springs Subdivision. The BNSF, which merged the AT&SF and the Burlington Northern in 1996, designates the route as their Pikes Peak Subdivision. Common traffic over the line largely consists of unit coal trains originating from the

Powder River Basin The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very ...

in southeast

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

and northeast

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

, however manifest trains are very common as well, and intermodal traffic is not unheard of. Passenger service over the line ended in 1971 with the creation of

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, making it a freight only route.

References

{{reflist Rail infrastructure in Colorado Union Pacific Railroad lines BNSF Railway lines