Hi all, this is a bit of a hybrid posting, showing some photos, as I enjoyed my last day of my three day January weekend, before I go back to the hectic life of college student tomorrow (yes, even though its MLK day, other than thanksgiving at my college holidays aren’t observed). Anyway today I decided to go for a walk with my camera and see if I could photograph anything transit related (bus trains, the like). I began by walking down the bike path that fallows Monument Creek and runs right near the major North/South Railway Line that goes through Colorado Springs connecting Denver with Texas and other points south, its a quite busy multi-tracked line, with freight trains keeping it busy (coal trains are extremely common).
This was the first sighting I encountered, as I left the bike path approaching where the former Colorado Springs train station is:
It’s Union Pacific (still painted in a Southern Pacific Livery) EMD GP-40-2 #4182 coupled to a rare caboose Rio Grande #01513, most freight trains don’t have cabooses anymore but this ones apparently still assigned for Colorado Springs Local Service, notice Pikes Peak in the Background. Source
Next I went across the street to Antlers Park to photograph this steam engine now fenced around and on display:
Across the street from this is the large building that was formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Depot-Colorado Springs Railroad Stations and is now a restaurant:
Now the depressing part of my walk downtown, I walked by a bus stop, photographing the bus schedules that went into effect at the beginning of the year:
Notice something wrong with the three bus schedules posted, there’s no more Sunday service. I then walked over to the now completely deserted (before 2010 bus service on Sunday was about hourly) on sundays (and even worse Saturdays, and weeknights after 6:15pm as well), Downtown Bus Terminal, This is where most of the COS buses plus, at half-hour intervals (still, not hourly for most routes) during the week:
There’s the downtown bus terminal with its small indoor waiting area, completely deserted, for some reason though the lights in the bus terminal have been kept on over the weekend even though there is no bus service.
Wow, third update of the day (one though was after midnight, hence it’s date as today, I think that’s a first!