Railroad Photos by Chuck.com

While the Moffat line became the D&RGW’s main line west of Denver, it was largely built by David Moffat’s Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Ry (later reorganized as the Denver & Salt Lake) between 1904 and 1913.  The line did not make it to Salt Lake but only to Craig and nearby coal fields in northwestern Colorado.  While much of the line was built to high standards and a manageable 2.0% grade, the final climb from the location of a proposed tunnel at about 9,100’ elevation (future Moffat Tunnel) to the top of the Continental Divide at Rollins Pass at 11,680’ had 4% grades, tight curves, and was a nightmare to operate in winter.  With the help of the state, the 6.2 mile long Moffat Tunnel was built over a four year span and officially opened in 1928, bypassing the Rollins Pass line and 23 miles of operating headaches.  However, the improved line still only went to Craig, not Salt Lake.  Then, after agreement with the D&RGW, a connecting line along the Colorado River between the D&RGW’s main on the Tennessee Pass line and the D&SL, called the Dotsero Cutoff, was built and opened in 1934.  Now a line directly west from Denver connected to Salt Lake, shortening the route by 175 miles.  In 1947, the D&SL merged with the D&RGW, and the Moffat line became the D&RGW’s mainline west from Denver.

 

In 1988, the D&RGW purchased the larger but weak Southern Pacific, giving the Rio Grande access to the west coast and tracks into Texas, St Louis and Chicago.  But another merger that really changed the Moffat line was the Union Pacific merger in 1996.  Much of the bridge traffic on the former D&RGW, whether on the Moffat line or the Tennessee Pass line, was routed onto UP’s Overland Route across Wyoming and Nebraska, greatly reducing the number of trains except for local coal trains from the Craig branch; the Tennessee Pass line was taken out of service completely in 1997.  On the plus side, trackage rights over the Moffat line and the “central corridor” (former Western Pacific and D&RGW tracks from Denver to Winnemucca NV) was granted to Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), so many of the trains are now BNSF. 

 

Today, traffic on this line is much less than it once was, and is increasingly BNSF.  The plunging coal market has caused many of the mines on the Craig branch to close and greatly reduced the coal traffic going east on UP’s former Kansas Pacific line across Kansas.  Amtrak still runs the California Zephyr on the line, and BNSF continues to use this line as a route from the Pacific Northwest to Texas and the Gulf Coast.