Richard Beal photo: Wheeling some pigs down south on the Joint Line, ATSF had some good lashups in the 80's

On an overcast spring day in 1983, Burlington Northern coal trains meet at Palmer Lake, Colorado. At right is a loaded train from Wyoming's Powder River Basin, throttling up to continue its southw... (more)

northbound Kansas City to Denver train HKCKDEN has just topped the Palmer Divide and will be in dynamic braking most of the next fifty miles into Denver a couple of miles north of Palmer Lake, CO

southbound BNSF Pikes Peak Local climbing toward Palmer Divide near Palmer Lake, CO

northbound BNSF coal empty passing dwindling and drying up Palmer Lake, CO

Joint Line bottleneck
Three trains are in view near Palmer Lake, Colorado, at a location know as “Sag” or Spruce. When the Santa Fe built its line between Colorado Springs and Denve... (more)

The early morning silence is broken as the 12 cylinder powerhouse of a recently built ES44C4 thunders off the mountainous walls that enclose Palmer Lake as a loaded cement train conquers the third... (more)

Thunder over Palmer Lake
A Santa Fe GP20 on a weedsprayer train waits out a storm over Palmer Lake, Colorado. I don’t remember the exact exposure of this photo, but I set the lens to ... (more)

todays version of BNSF's southbound Denver to Crews Pikes Peak Local is stuck four times out to get over the Palmer Divide at Greenland, CO on the Joint Line

southbound Denver to Amarillo South yard manifest train led by a pair of KCS motors waits patiently second out at Palmer Lake, CO on the busy and always interesting Joint Line

northbound BNSF Pikes Peak Local passing through Palmer Lake, CO

southbound BNSF Pikes Peak Local passing through Palmer Lake, CO

a new BNSF unit Liquified Petroleum Gas train that runs between Montana and Hutchinson, KS was southbound on the Joint Line just north of Palmer Lake, CO