THE SNOWY RANGE ROUTE’S FINAL SUMMER
Last Call for WYCO T
BY TRAVIS DOUTHIT/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
HE SMALL COMMUNITY of Centennial, Wyo., nestled at the base of the Medicine Bow Mountains, has
not seen a train pass through in over 18 years. The railroad tracks crossing Highway 130 are long gone. In fact, the only signs that a railroad existed are located at the Nici Self Historical Museum, which preserved the original Laramie, Hahn’s Peak & Pacific Railway depot and a former Union Pacific CA-4 caboose. In the summer of 1996, however, the railroad tracks were busy with activity, as the final summer of Wyoming Colorado Railroad’s (WYCO) operation between Laramie, Wyo., and
Walden, Colo., came to a close. I had just graduated from the Univer-
sity of Wyoming in Laramie that year. After a lucky encounter with a WYCO employee, he informed me the railroad would abandon the line in early fall. I quickly realized documenting the final summer of operation was paramount. My job search could wait. Union Pacific’s former Coalmont Branch had always fascinated me, but I never had the opportunity to photograph the line under UP ownership and missed most of WYCO’s early years of opera- tion. The branch had much to offer, from beautiful scenery to steep mountain
grades. The Albany switchbacks allowed the railroad to climb nearly 1000 feet out of the Centennial valley to reach Fox Park, Wyo., at an elevation 9050 feet, the highest point on the entire UP sys- tem. Railroad signs along the route in- cluded such names as Centennial, Alba- ny, King’s Cañon, Brownlee and Walden, adding to the mystique of the route. The Wyoming Colorado Railroad, a subsidiary of Western Railroad Builders of Ogden, Utah, purchased Union Pacif- ic’s 92-mile Coalmont Branch in Novem- ber 1987. On November 30, 1987, UP made its last run. Official operations for WYCO started on December 19, 1987, as
OPPOSITE: A rare late morning departure from Northgate, Colo., finds WYCO’s eclectic mix of EMD locomotives tackling the 1.7 percent grade between Northgate and Camp with 16 loads in tow. ABOVE: As the evening sun slowly fades behind the Medicine Bow Mountains the crew has finally conquered the tough 2.5 percent grade at Windmill Hollow and is pulling the second cut loaded jennies past Miller siding on September 9, 1996.
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