ing loads. By this time, the sun had set and I returned to Laramie.
End of the Line The last ore train departed Northgate
on October 1, 1996. WYCO ran sever- al more clean-up trains hauling the 133-pound jointed rail, from the Walden to Northgate segment, using the lone ex- SP 6323 and five or six gondolas. I man- aged to catch two more clean-up trains, a few weeks after the last ore train. As quickly as it started, it was over. The final chapter for the Snowy Range
Route came on October 16, 1996, when the Surface Transportation Board ap- proved WYCO’s application to abandon the 66.16 miles, from mile 1.31 in Lara- mie to the state line at mile 67.47. Aban- donment of the 27.03-mile segment from the state line to Walden at mile 94.5 had been granted in 1995. Track and ties
were gone by the end of 1999, leaving only traces of roadbed. The F-units, along with all of the pas-
senger equipment used in tourist train service, found new life on the Verde Canyon Railroad in Clarkdale, Ariz. The Geeps headed south to New Mexico to became part of the Southwestern Rail- road motive power roster. F7B No. 1511 was stripped of usable parts and cut up in Laramie. A similar fate happened to SD7 No. 6083, which was reportedly scrapped on site in Saratoga. A small gathering of people celebrated
the grand opening of the Medicine Bow rail-trail, at the Lake Owen trailhead in September 2007. The rail-trail covers 21 miles of railroad right-of-way, starting near the upper Albany switchbacks and ending at the Wyoming-Colorado border, near milepost 65. The Lake Owen trail- head is not marked by your typical For- est Service trail marker; rather, it is the home of ex-UP caboose No. 25170, now lettered as “Great Western” No. 3870. The caboose was owned by a WYCO employee with the intent of using it as a hunting cabin. It was later donated to
RIGHT: WYCO’s FP7’s Nos. 1510 and 1512 are basking in the hot Laramie, Wyo., sun on a July 6, 1996. The duo spent the summer dead in storage, while awaiting their final and current destination of Clarkdale, Ariz., to pull passenger excursions on the Verde Canyon Railroad. BELOW: On October 2, 1992, WYCO’s gorgeous matched set of red FP7’s are in charge of the excursion train as it slowly approaches Harrison Cut at milepost 41 in the heart of the Albany switchbacks.
50 SEPTEMBER 2015 •
RAILFAN.COM
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