The Yampa Valley Mail and a rambling Colorado Railroad story. Colorado once had scores of railroad companies but the two that survived the longest were the Denver & Salt Lake and the Denver & Rio Grande. Both focused on routes West of the Front Range.
The D&SL, aka the Moffat line, was the builder/owner of the Moffat Tunnel. As part of the bond financing, a property tax, the Moffat Tunnel Tax, was imposed on portions of Colorado along the original route. The D&SL made it from Denver to Craig, CO before running out of money.
The D&RG was the most successful railroad and did reach Salt Lake City. Many smaller railroads, including the D&SL, were acquired. The financial maneuvers involved probably wouldn’t withstand close scrutiny. When the D&RG got control of the Moffat Tunnel, they acquired the debts and obligations. One obligation was to provide daily passenger service from Denver to Craig. No service, no Moffat Tunnel Tax.
Passenger service was a money loser and the D&RG tried to get out. There were three trains, the D&RG portion of the California Zephyr (now operated by Amtrak, the Prospector, an overnight train to Salt Lake City, and the Yampa Valley Mail. The dastardly Western Slope residents wouldn’t let the D&RG out of the passenger train service unless the Moffat Tunnel Tax was rescinded. Hence, the Yampa Valley Mail continued. The train usually consisted of a ALCO PA1 locomotive with a unique square nose profile, a mail/baggage car, and one passenger car. The ALCOs could haul. Even with numerous stops, the train averaged 60 mph over a roadbed that was kept to freight, not passenger, standards. At some point the mail subsidy went away; then the tunnel bonds were paid off, and around 1968 the service stopped.
In Colorado, the railroads are responsible for fencing their right of ways and are liable for any livestock they kill. In the Yampa Valley area, annual snowfall can exceed 30 feet making for steep snow banks along side the tracks.
Along about March each year, a certain rancher would run out of “drinking money”. His solution was to kick one of his culls onto the track just before the mail train was due. The claim was always for his best prime breeder.
A sound business plan and proper marketing could have made the train profitable. Today, the Union Pacific owns the D&RG and has closed several of the routes. The Craig route has been built up to handle heavy coal traffic. The roadbed is in excellent condition,
The UP could probably build a profitable business running a train catering to skiers with a stop in Winter Park, Bond, and Steamboat Springs. From Bond, shuttle buses could easily serve Vail and Beaver Creek.
My father was a section foreman for the D&RG for ten years. We used the Yampa Valley Mail to visit Denver. Often we were the only passengers. Some of the route is nearly wilderness as no roads go into some of the canyons.
Hope some of you will enjoy this as a break from the current crap (TSA, Congress, the One, etc.).
