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 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.
A mountain railway is a railway that operates in a mountainous region. It may operate through the mountains by following mountain valleys and tunneling beneath mountain passes, or it may climb a mountain to provide transport to and from the summit.
A railway zig zag or switchback is a railway operation in which a train is required to switch its direction of travel in order to continue its journey. While this may be required purely from an operations standpoint, it is also ideal for climbing steep gradients with minimal need for tunnels and heavy earthworks. For a short distance, the direction of travel is reversed, before the original direction is resumed. Some switchbacks do not come in pairs, and the train may then need to travel backwards for a considerable distance.
A spiral is a technique employed by railways to ascend steep hills.
The Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway (CL&N) was a local passenger and freight-carrying railroad in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, connecting Cincinnati to Dayton via Lebanon. It was built in the late 19th century to give the town of Lebanon and Warren County better transportation facilities. The railroad was locally known as the "Highland Route", since it followed the ridge between the Little and Great Miami rivers, and was the only line not affected by floods such as the Great Dayton Flood of 1913.
The Denver, South Park, and Pacific Railroad was a historic 3 ft narrow gauge railroad that operated in Colorado in the western United States in the late 19th century. The railroad opened up the first rail routes to a large section of the central Colorado mining district in the decades of the mineral boom. The railroad took its name from the fact that its main line from Denver ascended the Platte Canyon and traversed South Park, hence its popular name "The South Park Line." Despite its lofty goals, the line never connected itself with the Pacific or any transcontinental line, apart from its terminal at Denver Union Station.
A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track.
The Georgetown Loop Railroad is a 3 ft narrow gauge United States heritage railroad located in the Rocky Mountains in Clear Creek County, adjacent to Interstate 70 in Colorado.
The Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern Railroad also known as the Shawmut Line, was a Class I railroad company operating passenger and freight service on standard gauge track in central Pennsylvania and western New York. The line was financially troubled for its entire life span and declared bankruptcy after just six years of operation. It would spend the remaining 42 year of its existence in receivership or trusteeship: one of the longest bankruptcy proceedings in American railroading history.
The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, often abbreviated as the C&TSRR, is a 3 ft narrow-gauge heritage railroad that operates on 64 miles (103 km) of track between Antonito, Colorado, and Chama, New Mexico, in the United States. The railroad is named for two geographical features along the route: the 10,015-foot (3,053 m)-high Cumbres Pass and the Toltec Gorge. Originally part of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad's narrow-gauge network, the line has been jointly owned by the states of Colorado and New Mexico since 1970. Today, the C&TSRR is one of only two remaining parts of the former D&RGW narrow-gauge network, the other being the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG), which runs between the communities of Durango and Silverton, Colorado. The railroad has a total of ten narrow-gauge steam locomotives and two narrow-gauge diesel locomotives on its current roster. The railroad also operates two smaller former D&RGW steam locomotives, Nos. 315 and 168, for special events and excursions.
The Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad is a 3 ft narrow-gauge tourist railroad in California that starts from the Roaring Camp depot in Felton, California and runs up steep grades through redwood forests to the top of nearby Bear Mountain, a distance of 3.25 miles.
The South Pacific Coast Railroad (SPC) was a 3 ft narrow gauge steam railroad running between Santa Cruz, California and Alameda, with a ferry connection in Alameda to San Francisco. The railroad was created as the Santa Clara Valley Railroad, founded by local strawberry growers as a way to get their crops to market in San Francisco and provide an alternative to the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1876, James Graham Fair, a Comstock Lode silver baron, bought the line and extended it into the Santa Cruz Mountains to capture the significant lumber traffic coming out of the redwood forests. The narrow-gauge line was originally laid with 52-pound-per-yard (26 kg/m) rail on 8-foot (2.44 m) redwood ties; and was later acquired by the Southern Pacific and converted to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge.
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 Burlington Northern Railroad in 1981.
Standard gauge was favored for railway construction in the United States, although a fairly large narrow-gauge system developed in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Utah. Isolated narrow-gauge lines were built in many areas to minimize construction costs for industrial transport or resort access, and some of these lines offered common carrier service. Outside Colorado, these isolated lines evolved into regional narrow-gauge systems in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Hawaii, and Alaska.
The Utah Division of the former Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) is a rail line that connects Grand Junction, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah in the Western United States. It is now incorporated into the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) system as part of the Central Corridor. The modern Union Pacific has split the line into two subdivisions for operational purposes, the Green River Subdivision between Grand Junction and Helper, Utah and the Provo Subdivision from Helper to Salt Lake City. Daily passenger service is provided by Amtrak's California Zephyr; the BNSF Railway and Utah Railway have trackage rights over the line.
The Yunnan–Haiphong railway is an 855 km (531 mi) railway built by France from 1904 to 1910, connecting Haiphong, Vietnam, with Kunming, Yunnan province, China. The section within China from Kunming to Hekou is known as the Kunming–Hekou railway, and is 466 km (290 mi) long. The section within Vietnam is 389 km (242 mi) long, and is known as the Hanoi–Lào Cai railway. The railway was built with 1,000 mm gauge due to the mountainous terrain along the route. Currently it is the only main line in China using 1,000 mmmetre gauge.
The Central Corridor is a rail line operated by the Union Pacific Railroad from near Winnemucca, Nevada to Denver, Colorado in the western United States. The line was created after the merger with the Southern Pacific Transportation Company by combining portions of lines built by former competitors. No portion of the line was originally built by the Union Pacific; in fact, some portions were built specifically to compete with the Union Pacific's Overland Route. The line is known for significant feats of engineering while crossing the Wasatch Mountains of Utah and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The line features numerous tunnels, the longest and highest of these is the Moffat Tunnel.
The Chengdu–Kunming railway or Chengkun railway, is a major trunkline railroad in southwestern China between Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province and Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. The line is 1,134 km (705 mi) long and traverses rugged terrain from the Sichuan Basin to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. The line was built between 1958 and 1970, with much of the work coming during the Third Front campaign to develop industry in China's interior. Major cities along route include Chengdu, Pengshan, Jiajiang, Emei, Ebian, Ganluo, Xide, Xichang, Dechang, Miyi and Panzhihua in Sichuan Province and Yuanmou, Lufeng, Anning and Kunming in Yunnan Province.
The Alamosa–Durango line or San Juan extension was a railroad line built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, following the border between the U.S. states of Colorado and New Mexico, in the Rocky Mountains. The line was originally built as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line between Alamosa, Colorado, and Durango, Colorado. Portions of the route survive to this day: the now standard-gauged segment from Alamosa to Antonito, Colorado, and a narrow-gauge portion from Antonito to Chama, New Mexico.
