Rio Grande Railroad: Map, Logo, History, Rosters

Last revised: November 4, 2026

Few large American railroads have a history as closely tied to the ground under the tracks as the Denver & Rio Grande Western. William Jackson Palmer wanted a railroad through the Rocky Mountains. The company’s own words were “Through the Rockies—not around them,” and “Scenic line of the world.” The charter of October 27, 1870, aimed a three-foot line from Denver toward El Paso, with a branch drawn all the way to Salt Lake City. Palmer never reached Mexico. What he built instead was the mountain railroad: the Royal Gorge, the San Juan narrow gauge, and, much later, the Moffat route that Union Pacific still uses. The Gould interests used the property to finance the Western Pacific, and the Rio Grande spent most of the years from 1915 through 1947 in receivership or bankruptcy. It came out of that long trouble in 1947. In 1988 its parent, Rio Grande Industries, bought the Southern Pacific and kept the larger railroad’s name.

Rio Grande F3s led by 554 on a westbound freight at Castle Gate, Utah, circa 1948

A Rio Grande publicity photo. F3s led by 554 head a westbound freight at Soldier Summit, crossing the Price River at Castle Gate, Utah, where the main line reaches 2.5 percent, circa 1948. Otto Roach photo.

On this page: At a glance · Palmer · Royal Gorge · To Utah · Gould · Moffat route · Passenger trains · Steam and diesel · Southern Pacific and Union Pacific · Public timetables

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Denver & Rio Grande Western. Reporting mark DRGW. Headquarters Denver
States	Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico
Incorporated	October 27, 1870, as the Denver & Rio Grande Railway. Capital $2,500,000. First spike in Denver, July 28, 1871
Slogan	Through the Rockies, not around them. Scenic line of the world
Steam since 1900	435 standard gauge and 48 narrow gauge, 483 frames. Roster
Diesels	554 frames, counted once. Roster
Denver & Salt Lake	Absorbed April 11, 1947. That railroad
California Zephyr	1949 until 1970. The train
Southern Pacific	Interstate Commerce Commission vote, August 9, 1988, approving Rio Grande Industries’ purchase
Union Pacific	Common control with the Southern Pacific completed September 11, 1996. The Moffat route remains part of Union Pacific

The Rio Grande Railroad logo. Author’s work.

Palmer’s railroad

Palmer had directed construction of the Kansas Pacific into Denver in 1870. The new city already had a railroad east and a railroad north to the Union Pacific at Cheyenne. What it did not have was a line of its own running south, along the mouths of the canyons where the mining camps were taking hold. He and his associates organized the Denver & Rio Grande Railway on October 27, 1870, in Colorado and in New Mexico, with a capital of $2,500,000. The charter ran from Denver to Pueblo, up the Arkansas to Salida, over Poncha Pass to the Rio Grande, and south along that river toward El Paso. One of the seven proposed branches showed Salt Lake City as its destination.

On February 17, 1871, Palmer announced that the road would be built to a gauge of three feet. The first spike went down in Denver on July 28, 1871. A three-foot railroad could follow a canyon that would have priced a standard-gauge line out of reach of a new company, and it could be built sooner into camps that might not wait. Robert A. LeMassena notes that the Rio Grande was the first road to equip its freight cars with air brakes. Silver was the traffic everyone talked about. Coal, from the openings along the Arkansas and later from Trinidad, was the traffic that lasted.

Track reached Colorado Springs, 76 miles south of Denver, in October 1871. The construction company turned the line over for operation on January 1, 1872. Pueblo was reached in June 1872. In October 1872 a branch went west to the Labran coal fields, 36 miles from Pueblo. The Panic of 1873 then stopped the march south. LeMassena counts seventy-seven standard-gauge companies that failed in that panic. The narrow-gauge Rio Grande did not. Between October 1872 and February 1876 the only new track was an eight-mile coal branch from Florence to Cañon City, finished in July 1874.

Construction south of Pueblo began again in January 1876. El Moro, five miles from Trinidad and built as a coal terminal, was reached in April 1876. La Veta, at the foot of La Veta Pass, was reached that July. In July 1878 the rails arrived at the Rio Grande itself, at Alamosa. Palmer still meant to reach El Paso. The practical way over the New Mexico line was Raton Pass, south of Trinidad, and by then he was not the only man surveying it.

Raton Pass and the Royal Gorge

In 1878 the Rio Grande and the Santa Fe fought twice. The Santa Fe had come west to La Junta and was building a railroad to the Pacific. Its surveyors reached Raton Pass ahead of the Rio Grande. Keith Bryant Jr. tells that contest in History of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. George H. Drury’s locomotive chapter dates both fights to 1878. Losing Raton was a hard blow. A line over that pass had been the best road to El Paso, the company was already short of money, and any other crossing of the state line would cost more than Palmer could comfortably spend. He turned west, toward Leadville, and the Santa Fe turned with him.

West of Cañon City the Arkansas River has cut a gorge that will hold one railroad. The Santa Fe wanted it as the way into the San Juan. Palmer wanted it because it was the line west. There was violence, and the threat of violence, in the construction camps. Most of the fight was in courtrooms and board rooms in Denver, New York, and Boston. In the fall of 1878 the Santa Fe leased the Rio Grande, on terms that would have kept future construction to three-foot gauge and kept the Santa Fe from building into the San Luis, the San Juan, and Leadville. The lease did not hold. Both sides spent the next year looking for a way around it.

By September 1879 the fight had drained the treasury. Palmer sold a half interest to Jay Gould, who took three of the five seats on the board. The settlement was the Treaty of Boston, signed on March 27, 1880, by Palmer, Gould, the bondholders, and the Santa Fe. The Rio Grande took possession of the Santa Fe’s grade through the Royal Gorge. Palmer was back in control of his own railroad in April 1880. By May the line was through from Pueblo to Salida, and in the summer of 1880 it reached Leadville.

To Utah, and two railroads

Leadville was not the end of the map. In September 1880 construction started over Marshall Pass, aimed at Utah and pushed hard enough to stay ahead of the Denver, South Park & Pacific. The first train steamed into Gunnison on August 8, 1881. The same month the San Juan extension was completed from Alamosa to Durango. Silverton was reached the next year. South of Alamosa the narrow gauge continued toward Santa Fe as the Chili Line, a long and lightly built way into a city the Santa Fe already served on its own branch. The last Chili Line train ran on September 1, 1941.

The line west from Salida was not, at first, the shortest way to Utah. Coal around Crested Butte pulled the railroad through Gunnison and the Black Canyon. Montrose, about halfway on to Grand Junction, later became the junction for the Ouray branch, built for the silver mines. The Antonito–Durango line was never joined to Montrose, and the gap between Ouray and Silverton was never built. A standard-gauge rival, the Colorado Midland, was soon building into the same mountains. The Rio Grande answered by extending west from Red Cliff, through Glenwood Springs, and on to a second connection at Grand Junction.

Colorado could not charter a railroad into Utah. On July 21, 1881, Palmer’s group organized the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway and consolidated it the same day with the Sevier Valley Railway and the Salt Lake & Park City. To save a season of grading, the new company took over C. W. Scofield’s three short lines south and east of Salt Lake City: the Utah & Pleasant Valley, the Wasatch & Jordan Valley, and the Bingham Canyon & Camp Floyd. They had been built for coal, silver, and copper. The Utah & Pleasant Valley already crossed Soldier Summit. The three were purchased in December 1881, and the Rio Grande’s rails reached Salt Lake City in June 1882. On the Colorado side the track arrived at the state line on December 12, 1882. The through line was completed on March 30, 1883. The first passenger train left Salt Lake City on April 8. A branch beyond the city reached Ogden in 1883 and a connection with the Central Pacific. The whole Denver–Ogden railroad was still three-foot gauge.

Rio Grande steam derrick OP at Alamosa, Colorado, in September 1944

Rio Grande steam derrick OP near the depot in Alamosa, Colorado, in September 1944. Author’s collection.

Palmer resigned the presidency of the Colorado company on August 9, 1883. Frederick Lovejoy replaced him. Palmer kept the Utah railroad. In July 1884 the argument over the lease became a broken railroad: the Colorado company pulled up the connection at the state line, and it went into receivership. The Denver & Rio Grande Railway was reorganized as the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad on July 14, 1886. The lease of the Utah line ended on July 31. Palmer’s Denver & Rio Grande Western was on its own.

He used that independence to change the gauge. The Rio Grande Western Railway was organized on May 16, 1889, as a consolidation of the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the State Line & Denver Railway, and the reorganization took effect on July 1. The point of the new company was to pay for standard gauge and for standard-gauge equipment. The main line from Ogden through Grand Junction was converted in 1890, and the branches were finished the next year. On the Colorado side the same work was under way. Denver to Ogden was standard gauge by 1890. A third rail had gone down as early as 1881, so the gauges could overlap while the conversion moved. By 1906 the narrow gauge that remained was marked off at Alamosa, Salida, and Montrose.

Rio Grande K-36 484 beside a GP7 at Alamosa on June 21, 1967

Rio Grande class K-36 484 at the yard and roundhouse in Alamosa, Colorado, on June 21, 1967, beside GP7 5104. Drew Jacksich photo.

West of Antonito the San Juan lines stayed three-foot, long after the through route had become a standard-gauge bridge line between Denver and Salt Lake City. The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 had already shown which traffic would last. After the silver collapse, coal and overhead freight mattered more than the mining branches. The last of the San Juan freight railroad ran out in the late 1960s. What remained became the Durango & Silverton and the Cumbres & Toltec.

Rio Grande Southern

Otto Mears built the railroad that tried to tie those San Juan lines together from the outside. He incorporated the Rio Grande Southern on November 5, 1889. Ouray and Silverton were never joined, so Mears went around the unfinished gap. The first through train ran the 162 miles from Durango to Ridgway on January 2, 1892, over Lizard Head Pass. The silver collapse of 1893 ended the boom. The company entered receivership on August 2, 1893, and the Rio Grande became the controlling stockholder. The Southern stayed a separate railroad, difficult to operate and famous for the scenery, until it quit in 1951. The full account is on that page.

Gould, and a long receivership

Between the summer of 1889 and the middle of 1901 the Rio Grande Western stood independent of the Colorado company. Gould control of the Western returned in 1901. On August 1, 1908, the Rio Grande Western was merged into the Denver & Rio Grande, together with the short lines that had been used to build the Utah branches: the Carbon County, the Castle Valley, the Copper Belt, the San Pete Valley, the Sevier, the Tintic Range, the Utah Central, and the Utah Eastern. The locomotive numbers were rebuilt around that merger. A second renumbering followed in 1923.

The Gould interests used the Rio Grande in the financing of the Western Pacific. The debt sat on the older railroad for decades. Maintenance was deferred, and the property was left to run itself. The Rio Grande stopped paying on the Western Pacific debt in March 1915. On January 25, 1918, it was forced into receivership for its own obligations and for that debt as well. A presidential order of December 26, 1917, had already put the nation’s railroads under federal control, the Rio Grande among them, effective December 28. The United States Railroad Administration operated the line from March 21, 1918, until March 1, 1920. Government operation did not retire the debt, and it did not put the property back in good order.

Southern Pacific, Rio Grande, and Western Pacific F7s at Roper Yard in Salt Lake City, June 1970. Rick Burn photo.

The company that came out of the war was a new one. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad was organized in Delaware in November 1920. It took over operation of the Denver & Rio Grande on August 1, 1921, and the stock went to the Western Pacific Railroad Corporation, which also controlled the Western Pacific. The new company was in receivership again on July 21, 1922. On October 29, 1924, the railroad was sold under foreclosure and came out under the joint control of the Missouri Pacific and the Western Pacific. It carried the same name. It was not yet free of either partner. For most of 1915 through 1947 the Rio Grande was in receivership or bankruptcy. It came out in 1947 free of the Western Pacific and the Missouri Pacific.

The Moffat route

A 1940 system map of the Denver and Rio Grande Western

An official 1940 system map of the Denver & Rio Grande Western. Author’s collection.

Denver is at 5,198 feet. Palmer Lake, 52 miles south, is 7,237. Pueblo is 4,672. Tennessee Pass is 10,240, Grand Junction 4,583, Green River 4,076, Soldier Summit 7,440, Salt Lake City 4,233, and Ogden 4,293. Much of the main line is 0.6 to 0.7 percent. The west slope of Tennessee Pass is 3 percent. The west slope of Soldier Summit was 4 percent until a relocation in 1912 and 1913 brought it to 2 percent. Coal was the principal commodity. The railroad crossed the same wall of mountains three ways: through the Royal Gorge and over Tennessee Pass, over Marshall Pass on the earlier narrow-gauge line through Gunnison and Montrose, and, after 1934, by the Moffat Tunnel.

The way out of Denver on the north belonged to David H. Moffat. His Denver & Salt Lake, chartered in 1902 as the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific, was aimed at Salt Lake City and ran out of money at Craig in 1913. Craig remained the end of the line. The temporary railroad over Rollins Pass was a line of switchbacks, with grades as steep as 4 percent. The Moffat Tunnel replaced that climb. The railroad bore was holed through on July 7, 1927, and turned over on February 26, 1928. Drury’s account is a bore of more than six miles, at about 9,200 feet, which shortened the line over the pass by about 23 miles.

Rio Grande GP35 3044 leading Geeps west out of Denver, circa 1967

Geeps led by GP35 3044 climb out of Denver with a westbound freight, circa 1967. American-Rails.com collection.

The tunnel by itself still left the Denver & Salt Lake short of the Rio Grande. The Dotsero Cutoff, dedicated June 16, 1934, joined the tunnel route to the old main line near Dotsero. Drury credits it with taking 175 miles off the Denver to Grand Junction run, and with replacing the climbs to Palmer Lake and Tennessee Pass by a 4,000-foot ascent from Denver to the tunnel and about 50 miles of almost continuous 2 percent. The management that would rebuild the railroad took charge on November 1, 1935, while the company was still in trusteeship. Wilson McCarthy, president of the Denver & Salt Lake in 1934, later served as operating trustee of the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande absorbed the Denver & Salt Lake on April 11, 1947.

Passenger trains

Rio Grande 4-8-4 1706 arriving in Denver with train 16 on June 17, 1947

Rio Grande 4-8-4 1706 (M-64) arrives in Denver with train 16, the Colorado-New Mexico Express, Denver to Alamosa, on June 17, 1947. Richard Kindig photo.

The named trains were the public face of a freight railroad, and they followed the three crossings. The Scenic Limited used the Royal Gorge. The Colorado-New Mexico Express, train 16, ran Denver to Alamosa. The San Juan was the narrow-gauge passenger train from Alamosa to Durango, and the Silverton train carried the same trade on from Durango into the San Juan. The Prospector was the overnight train between Denver and Salt Lake City. Its first equipment, Budd cars M1 and M2, went back to the builder in 1945. The train itself continued. The Royal Gorge ran the Pueblo gateway through to Ogden. The Yampa Valley took the Moffat line on to Craig, and the Ski Train made a business of Winter Park. The Colorado Eagle was the Missouri Pacific train the Rio Grande forwarded between Pueblo and Denver.

Rio Grande F7A 5554 with the Royal Gorge at Colorado Springs on August 5, 1965

Rio Grande F7A 5554 ahead of the Royal Gorge, stopped in Colorado Springs on August 5, 1965. Ed Fulcomer photo. American-Rails.com collection.

The Exposition Flyer was the Chicago to Oakland train the Rio Grande shared with the Burlington and the Western Pacific. On the Rio Grande it ran Denver to Salt Lake City by the Moffat Tunnel and the Dotsero Cutoff, trains 5 west and 6 east. The tunnel had been open since 1928. The Flyer was not the first train through it. The California Zephyr replaced that service and ran from 1949 until 1970, with the Burlington and the Western Pacific, over the same route. After 1970 the Rio Grande kept a Denver to Salt Lake City train of its own, the Rio Grande Zephyr.

Rio Grande F7A 5764 with train 17, the Rio Grande Zephyr, at Glenwood Springs in the 1970s

Rio Grande F7A 5764 stopped in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, with train 17, the westbound Rio Grande Zephyr, during the 1970s. Robert Eastwood, Jr. photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Rio Grande F9A 5771 with the westbound Rio Grande Zephyr at Glenwood Springs in the 1970s

Rio Grande F9A 5771 at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, with the westbound Rio Grande Zephyr during the 1970s. The Colorado River is at left. American-Rails.com collection.

Steam and diesel

Rio Grande 4-6-6-4 3712 westbound over Soldier Summit in the 1950s

Rio Grande 4-6-6-4 3712 has crested Soldier Summit with a westbound freight during the 1950s. Ed Olsen photo. American-Rails.com collection.

The steam roster is Drury’s list of locomotives built since 1900: 435 standard-gauge engines, Shay included, and 48 narrow-gauge engines. The class-by-class list is on that page. The Challengers of 1938 and 1942 were the last new road steam, and 3710–3714 were the last new steam of any kind. No government locomotives were allocated in the First World War. The 1923 2-8-8-2s were copies, bought by the railroad itself. By 1956 the standard-gauge steam that remained was mostly switchers and helpers on the Moffat route. The last 2-8-8-2s, 3609, 3612, and 3619, ran until November 1956. The last standard-gauge steam run was 2-8-0 1151, Alamosa to South Fork and back, on December 26, 1956.

The narrow-gauge Mikados are the K-27, K-28, K-36, and K-37 pages.

New Rio Grande GP30s eastbound along the Colorado River in Ruby Canyon, summer 1962

New Rio Grande GP30s head east along the Colorado River in Ruby Canyon, summer 1962. Ed Roe photo. American-Rails.com collection.

The first diesel was an NW2 delivered at Pueblo on February 6, 1941. Covered wagons, then Geeps, then six-motor units replaced the helpers. The diesel roster counts 554 locomotives. A renumbering in 1950 did not create a second fleet of F units. The SW1000s are in that count. So are three GP60s of May 1990, the last new units delivered in Rio Grande black and orange, still lettered for this railroad after the Southern Pacific purchase.

Rio Grande SD45 5340 and GP35 3046 at Denver in May 1968

Rio Grande SD45 5340 and GP35 3046 in Denver, May 1968. The SD45 was a few months old. Robert Eastwood, Jr. photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Rio Grande SD45s led by 5329 westbound at Grand Junction, circa 1969

SD45s led by 5329 work a freight westbound through Grand Junction, Colorado, circa 1969. Rick Burn photo.

Rio Grande F7As 5731 and 5721 at Minturn, Colorado, on March 2, 1968. Ed Fulcomer photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Southern Pacific and Union Pacific

The railroad that came out in 1947 had the Moffat route, the coal, and the overhead freight. In 1949 it put on the California Zephyr with the Burlington and the Western Pacific, and it kept its own Denver to Salt Lake City train after that streamliner ended in 1970. Those were prosperous years, and the railroad through them was still the Denver & Rio Grande Western.

On August 9, 1988, the Interstate Commerce Commission voted 4–0 to approve the purchase of the Southern Pacific by Rio Grande Industries. The price in the next morning’s papers was $1.02 billion in cash, plus Southern Pacific debt the buyer would assume. The papers do not agree on that debt, and this page does not pick a figure. Philip Anschutz was chairman of Rio Grande Industries. The Denver & Rio Grande Western was to be kept as a separate operating subsidiary. System headquarters would be San Francisco. The vote was not the closing. The written decision was still to be served. The smaller railroad had bought the larger one, and it had not disappeared.

Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific completed common control on September 11, 1996. The Surface Transportation Board’s decision in Finance Docket 32760 names the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company among the Southern Pacific companies in that case. The decision does not dissolve the Rio Grande on that day. The Moffat route remains part of Union Pacific. The narrow-gauge remnants are the two tourist railroads named above.

Public timetables (March, 1940)

March 1940 public timetable.

Sources

George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, Denver & Rio Grande Western chapter, for the grades and elevations, the 1908 merger and the 1923 renumbering, the receivership years, the Dotsero Cutoff’s effect on the Denver to Grand Junction run, the Moffat Tunnel in his wording, and the end of standard-gauge steam.
Don Strack, Utah Rails, “Rio Grande in Colorado, 1870–1880,” citing Robert A. LeMassena, Robert G. Athearn, and O. Meredith Wilson. Incorporation on October 27, 1870, capital $2,500,000, and the first spike on July 28, 1871. The three-foot announcement of February 17, 1871. Colorado Springs in October 1871, opened January 1, 1872. Pueblo in June 1872. The Labran branch in October 1872, Florence to Cañon City in July 1874, and no other construction until 1876. El Moro in April 1876, La Veta in July 1876, and Alamosa in July 1878. Raton and the Royal Gorge in 1878. The Santa Fe lease in the fall of 1878. Gould’s half interest in September 1879. The Treaty of Boston on March 27, 1880. Leadville in the summer of 1880. Gunnison on August 8, 1881, and Durango in August 1881. LeMassena’s note that the Rio Grande was the first road to equip its freight cars with air brakes.
Don Strack, Utah Rails, “Rio Grande in Utah, 1881 to 1889,” citing Athearn, Wilson, Reeder, and the Salt Lake papers. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway organized July 21, 1881. Salt Lake City in June 1882. The Colorado-Utah line on December 12, 1882. The through line completed March 30, 1883, and the first passenger train from Salt Lake City on April 8. Palmer’s resignation on August 9, 1883. The break at the state line and the receivership in July 1884. Reorganization as the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad on July 14, 1886, and the end of the Utah lease on July 31, 1886.
Don Strack, Utah Rails, “Rio Grande in Utah, 1889 to 1908,” citing LeMassena and Wilson. The Rio Grande Western organized May 16, 1889, the reorganization effective July 1, and the main line converted to standard gauge to finance that company. The Rio Grande Western independent until the middle of 1901. The merger of August 1, 1908, into the Denver & Rio Grande, with the Utah short lines named in that entry.
Don Strack, Utah Rails, “Rio Grande in Utah, 1908 to 1988,” citing Athearn and LeMassena. Payments on the Western Pacific debt stopped in March 1915. Receivership on January 25, 1918. Federal control from the presidential order of December 26, 1917, effective December 28, and Railroad Administration operation from March 21, 1918, to March 1, 1920. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad took over operation on August 1, 1921. Receivership on July 21, 1922. Foreclosure sale on October 29, 1924, into joint control of the Missouri Pacific and the Western Pacific.
Railway Age, 1946, as carried in Don Strack’s notes on the Rio Grande diesels of that year. The management then in charge had taken over the railway on November 1, 1935.
Robert G. Athearn, “The Independence of the Denver and Rio Grande,” Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1. Wilson McCarthy became president of the Denver & Salt Lake in 1934 and then an operating trustee of the Rio Grande. April 11, 1947, was the day the reorganized Rio Grande’s board first sat.
Denver & Salt Lake Railway Co. v. Commissioner, Tax Court dockets 43783, 43784, 43785, and 43786. The Denver & Salt Lake merged into the Denver & Rio Grande Western on April 11, 1947.
Colorado state archives, Moffat Tunnel fact sheet. The railroad bore was holed through on July 7, 1927. The finished tunnel was turned over on February 26, 1928.
The New York Times, June 17, 1934, “New Line to Coast Opened to Trains,” dateline Denver, June 16, for the dedication of the Dotsero Cutoff that afternoon. The company narrative uses Drury’s account of the cutoff. It does not use the construction figures in that news story.
Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Deseret News, reporting the Interstate Commerce Commission vote of August 9, 1988. The cash price is $1.02 billion. The assumed-debt figure is left as the papers left it.
Surface Transportation Board, Finance Docket No. 32760, Decision No. 61, decided November 19, 1996. Common control was consummated on September 11, 1996. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company is one of the Southern Pacific companies named in that case.
Don Strack, Utah Rails, Denver & Rio Grande Western diesel roster, for the 554 diesel frames. The locomotive-by-locomotive list is the diesel page.

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