Hello, and welcome to the Colorado & Southern Falcon Branch blog
This blog will cover my adventures in modeling the former Denver & New Orleans trackage that later became the Colorado & Southern Falcon Branch, otherwise known as the "Pollywog" by the locals along the route. The modeling will cover both N and HO scale
I have lived in Falcon, Colorado for most of my life. Being a train nut from the beginning, of course I was drawn to the railroad history of the area. The Rock Island was of course easy to find information on, and a lot of the roadbed is still visible to this day, having lasted into the 1990s. I also knew a little of another railroad that came from the north and crossed the Rock Island at Falcon. Outside of knowing this, and seeing a bit of roadbed along highway 24, I never actually found out much about this railroad. Later on I would find out it was the mainline of the Denver and New Orleans railroad.
In the beginning of 2022, I was in a bit of a modeling quandary. Our large local club the Pikemasters had lost their large home in Colorado Springs, and I had a lot of equipment intended for operating a large layout. This was coupled with my job really taking off in the last year, I work for the Pikes Peak Cog Railway and we had just reopened after our large rebuilding project. No longer did I have the free time I once had. I was a big Santa Fe modeler, and had dozens of locomotives to model the 60's. Without a concrete place to run all this accumulated stuff, I contemplated switching 100% over to N scale. Purchasing some kato unitrack and locomotives and rolling stock was a start in that direction.
The big change came in January of 2022 when I saw a book by Jim Jones "Denver and New Orleans; In the shadow of the rockies". Having known the railroad came through Falcon, but not much else, I purchased the book. The book provided some very interesting insight into the railroad I had not known, and set my desires to model this oft forgotten railroad. This railroad is even left out of most historic railroad maps I've seen.
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| The book that started it all. |
The Denver and New Orleans was a railroad formed to build from Denver to the Gulf of Mexico by John Evans, Second Territorial Governor of Colorado and also the man behind the Denver, South Park, and Pacific railroad as well. Construction began in 1881 and the railroad reached Pueblo by way of Elbert in 1882. Creating the first Denver to Pueblo standard gauge railroad (the D&RG had completed a narrow gauge route 10 years prior). Unfortunately that is where the D&NO ended, a lack of finances resulted in the railroad reorganising as the Denver, Texas and Gulf in 1885 and changing the goal from building to the Gulf, to connecting to the Fort Worth and Denver City building north from Texas. Eventually this connection would be made via a subsidiary company financed by General Grenville Dodge of Union Pacific fame. The railroad would come under control of the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf in 1890 before being reorganised as part of the Colorado & Southern railroad in 1898 following the 1893 bankruptcy of the Union Pacific.
The line from Denver to Pueblo was not ideal, having sharp curves and steep grades. So following the formation of the C&S, the railroad signed an agreement to use the Santa Fe trackage from Pueblo to Denver on August 10th, 1899. This created a "Joint line" between the two railroads and demoted the D&NO trackage to secondary usage. By 1906, all the trackage south of Franceville Junction had been Abandoned. The branchline from Colorado Springs to Manitou Junction (surprisingly nowhere near Manitou Springs) continued to operate, forming a U from Colorado Springs to Denver that paralleled the ATSF trackage. In 1913, this Branch from Falcon to Colorado Springs was removed, leaving the former mainline as a mere Branchline to the town of Falcon and all trackage south of Falcon was removed by the time WWI had ended. The line became known at the "Pollywog" by the locals as the trains twisted and turned like a Tadpole as they ambled down the track. A flood in 1935 and competition from road operations spelled the end for the branchline, and the rails were pulled up to Conners near Denver. This 8.5 mile stretch continued to operate as a branchline until the 1980's and even hosted the Pioneer Zephyr for publicity shots. Today, a small amount of abandoned trackage still exists to the northwest of Evans and Holly Street in Denver. RTD still uses a portion of the right of way where the Colorado station on the light rail is located. The former South Denver yard of the C&S is now the location of the I25 & Broadway station as well. Click here to see a map of the D&NO trackage as it was at its peak.
The railroad intrigued me the more I learned about it, and I had some connection to it. I went to Falcon High School, located off Eastonville road. Eastonville Road was built on top of the former roadbed. I turned right at Judge Orr and Eastonville road, the location of the Water stop of Granger. The railroad after being truncated to a branchline to Falcon checks about every box I've ever seen on a model railroad branchline, and is the most "narrow gauge" of standard gauge branches I've ever seen. A handful of ten-wheelers plodded the trackage with short trains and combines on mixed trains a few days a week. There was even the obligatory doodlebug that came into play to cut down costs on the branchline. Throw in stock trains seasonally and it adds a bit of fun operation. This to me, was a very cool opportunity to model something nobody else had.
I've built a micro-layout in N scale representing the town of Hilltop and plan to build some T-trak modules to take to shows featuring the C&S Falcon Branch. A bachmann 4-6-0 has been kitbashed to be a good C&S C-3E stand in and performs the duties of the primary N scale power. I plan to continue building small modules to take to shows in this scale.
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The micro layout as of July 2022.    |
In HO, I have a 12x12 space, the modelshop, to build a layout in. I plan on modeling the branch terminus of Falcon, along with Eastonville, in this space. The end goal here is to create the "experience" of the branchline, not necessarily an exact replica.
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| Two SD7's, either I left one in the dryer too long, or gave the other miracle grow...... |
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| While 638 was a little big for the branch, it did operate the Conner section quite often at the end of it's life. 638 is a BLi model. |
Keep checking this blog for the modeling progress as I continue building layouts.
