The phone rang at 6:10 AM with Carl and I obeying the reason for its ringing. We walked out onto the Park West Avenue bridge to wait for the departure of Union Pacific 4-6-6-4 3985, the world's largest operating steam engine, bound for Cheyenne at 7:00 AM on a dark and damp overcast morning. Right on schedule, 3985 departed Denver with about fifty railfans on the bridge taking pictures and video.
I ran across the bridge for the going-away views.
What a show of steam and sound the Challenger provided us and Carl was truly impressed by the power of the steam engine. It just shows that sometimes you can be in the right place at the right time to watch history occur before your eyes. On the way back to the La Quinta Inn, we stopped by a MacDonald's in a petrol station for breakfast then we checked out and walked back over the bridge.
Below us was the BNSF Denver engine facility which had a Quebec, North Shore and Labrador SD40 present.
On the way back to Denver Union Station, the Rio Grande Ski Train waited for a future trip. At the station, I saw Tom Tuttle, the excellent Amtrak conductor, taking tickets for passengers who were travelling on the California Zephyr via Wyoming this morning. Once our tickets were collected, I mailed a few postcards as we waited for our train and my return to Wyoming via Amtrak.
