Railhead: Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

Railhead: Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abando...:   Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

 

Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado...:   I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know! I've been looking into local passen...

The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

 

I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!

I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel.  What I found is that I knew very little about it.  Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it.  I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.

I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH.  the result is fascinating.

It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily.  This article takes a look at it.

What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas.  I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station as viewed from in front of Denver's Oxford Hotel.

 

 

Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered.  It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern.  In fact it probably does.

Jersey Creamery Inc.

The trip took 19 hours.  It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc.  The train moved about 34 miles an hour.

We'll look at the return trip first.  The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning.  Uff.

It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.

Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming

What I imagined?  

Not really.  And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad.  This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior.  That makes piles of sense, really.  Of course there would be.  How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?  

It simply hadn't occurred to me.

In my imaginary trip., that'd be it.  If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock.  Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.

What about the other way around?

Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper.  Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse.  The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne.  Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours.  The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure.  So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews.  That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense.  Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.

By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.

These times are almost unimaginable now.  When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9.  I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.

And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive.  Normally that takes me a little under three hours.  I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.

Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?

Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them.  They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple.  Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather.  Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had?  Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster.  It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.

Tuesday, March 14, 1876. The draft of the Colorado Constitution.

Colorado's constitutional convention wrapped up, having produced a draft of the foundational document which Colorado still uses.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 12, 1876. London meat shower.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, England (London), United Kingdom, Weather

Monday, February 7, 1876. Colorado women get to vote.

The Territory of Colorado granted women the full franchise. Wyoming had done the same in 1869.

It didn't make the front page of this Denver newspaper, but then, this was probably a morning addition.

Saturday, February 5, 1876. Doc Holliday arrives in Cheyenne.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, 1880s, 1887, Catholic, Frontier Wyoming, Personalities, religion, South Dakota (Deadwood), The Frontier West, Wyoming, Wyoming (Cheyenne)

In Memoriam. Ben Nighthorse Campbell.

 

Former Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell died yesterday at age 92.  He was an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho tribe and a Korean War veteran of the U.S. Air Force.  

Campbell was originally elected to the Senate as a Democrat, but later switched to the Republican Party.

Monday, November 26, 1945. Now's the Time, Wolves and War Brides, Questionable claim about Goering, Test tube babies in Virgin hospitals, Japanese social insurance, ties for Christmas.

Recorded on this day in 1945:

 The Sheridan Press reported on wolves and war brides.

The story on the big wolf is ironic in a contemporary context.  Wolves were wiped out in Colorado, probably and in Wyoming, probably, until the major reintroduction effort of the 2000s began.  It's been a huge success in Wyoming, for which I'm glad, in spite of my initial skepticism.  An ongoing effort is occuring in Colorado, which is meeting a lot of opposition in the anti nature Freedom Caucus era.

The Rocky Mountain News, which I remember from the 70s, 80s and 90s, when it was the best, in my view, of the two Denver papers, was a bit sensationalist at the time, which I've only recently come to appreciate.  It was always a "tabloid", with that sort of paper format for some reason having a reputation of that type.  I've never heard of the story related by the headline here:

A little digging finds that this claim was flat out untrue.

The News also reported on, oddly enough, test tube babies, something that is way earlier than I'd have ever supposed.

The first "test tube" baby was born in 1978.  That person Louise Brown, is still with us.  The first example of IVF in a mammal did not occur until 1959.  Apparently the proponent of this suggestion was well ahead of her time in terms of scientific knowledge.

It's notable that the suggestion had a strong eugenics characteristic.  That drive is also now very much coming into fruition, with designer babies now becoming a thing.

On the underlying concern, the explosion in births and the drop in the average age for a woman to first give birth that commenced at this time shows the concern was misplaced.  As a Catholic, of course, I regard IVF as both unnatural and immoral.  The bizarrely pro natalist Trump administration is all in on it.

The News also reported on Japanese social insurance, something being brought in by the progressive and distributist MacArthur occupation.

The cartoons of the day.

A classic gift was suggested.

British troops swept the Sharon plain in reaction to a prior days terrorist attack.

Ezra Pound was indicted for a second time on 19 counts of treason.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 25, 1945. Taxing war profits.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Austria, Christian Democrats, Douglas MacArthur, Japan, Occupation of Japan, Taxes

Monday ,November 22, 1875. The death of Vice President Henry Wilson.

Ardent opponent of slavery and career politician Vice President Henry Wilson died in office at age 63.

GENERAL ORDERS, NO. 97

WAR DEPARTMENT,

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE

I. The following order announces the decease of Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States:

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, November 22, 1875.

It is with profound sorrow that the President has to announce to the people of the United States the death of the Vice-President, Henry Wilson, who died in the Capitol of the nation this morning.

The eminent station of the deceased, his high character, his long career in the service of his State and of the Union, his devotion to the cause of freedom, and the ability which he brought to the discharge of every duty stand conspicuous and are indelibly impressed on the hearts and affections of the American people.

In testimony of respect for this distinguished citizen and faithful public servant the various Departments of the Government will be closed on the day of the funeral, and the Executive Mansion and all the Executive Departments in Washington will be draped with badges of mourning for thirty days.

The Secretaries of War and of the Navy will issue orders that appropriate military and naval honors be rendered to the memory of one whose virtues and services will long be borne in recollection by a grateful nation.

U. S. GRANT

By the President:

HAMILTON FISH,

Secretary of State.

II. On the day next succeeding the receipt of this order at each military post the troops will be paraded at 10 o'clock a. m. and this order read to them.

The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.

At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired. Commencing at 12 o'clock noon seventeen minute guns will be fired, and at the close of the day the national salute of thirty-seven guns.

The usual badge of mourning will be worn by officers of the Army and the colors of the several regiments will be put in mourning for the period of three months.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND, Adjutant-General.

He had been born Jeremiah Jones Colbath and born to extremely impoverished circumstances, growing up partially as an indentured servant to a farmer in his region.  At age 21 he changed his name, although the reasons really aren't known.  He became a shoemaker, and then entered politics as a Whig.  He was one of the organizers of the Free Soil Party in 1852 and became a U.S. Senator in 1855.  He served in the Union Army during the Civil War and exited the war back into politics as an advocate of the rights  of freed slaves.

With his death, under the law at the, the office of Vice Presidency fell vacant until the next General Election, that of 1877.

On the same day:

Executive Order—Expansion of Ute Indian Reservation Territory

November 22, 1875

EXECUTIVE MANSION, November 22, 1875.

It is hereby ordered that the tract of country in the Territory of Colorado lying within the following-described boundaries, viz: Commencing at the northeast corner of the present Ute Indian Reservation, as defined in the treaty of March 2, 1868 (Stats, at Large, vol. 15, p. 619); thence running north on the 107th degree of longitude to the first standard parallel north; thence west on said first standard parallel to the boundary line between Colorado and Utah; thence south with said boundary to the northwest corner of the Ute Indian Reservation; thence east with the north boundary of the said reservation to the place of beginning, be, and the same hereby is, withdrawn from sale and set apart for the use of the several tribes of Ute Indians, as an addition to the present reservation in said Territory.

U. S. GRANT.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 20, 1875. Winking at collision in the Black Hills and the Las Cuevas War.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, 1877, Army, Black Hills, boats and ships, Crime, Great Sioux War, Las Cuevas War, Mexico, Philip Sheridan, Sioux, South Dakota, Texas, Texas Rangers, William Tecumseh Sherman, Wyoming

NIMBY? State Board of Land Commissioners denies Prism Logistics lease renewal on Casper Mountain and other ponderings.

This is an interesting story.

State Board of Land Commissioners denies Prism Logistics lease renewal on Casper Mountain

I'm glad this isn't going forward.  It shouldn't, because of where it's located.

But because of where its located is where it drew attention.

In Natrona County, over the past year, residents have risen up in opposition to this gravel mine, a proposed solar farm in the western end of the county, and a proposed nuclear generator manufacturing facility north of Casper.  In Gillette there's some sort of controversy going on over some sort of nuclear facility.  And there's a big debate on a wind farm in Laramie County.

It's hard to know what to make of all of this.

What is clear is that local politicians respond to the controversies.  I'm sure if you asked any one of the Natrona  County Commissioners if they supported energy, they would say yes.  And they'd all say they support mining.  But when the votes come, they're voting like they're members of Greenpeace. 

And one local legislature says that his nickname is now "No nuke" for his opposition to the nuclear generator facility.

Nuclear energy is the safest and most efficient form of power generation we have, and until the mysteries of fission are unlocked, if ever, it'll continue to be.  In a rational world we'd have a five year plan to replace every coal burning plant in the country with nuclear power.

Indeed, going one step further, we'd mandate the retirement of petroleum fueled everything in that time frame, or perhaps ten years.

The reason we don't is because, for the most part, even though we're the smartest animal on the planet, we're not anywhere near as smart as we like to think we are.  If we were, we'd make decisions based on logic.  Most people don't.  Most people make decisions based on emotion.

It's easy to understand why a person would emotionally resent a gravel pit in their backyard, more or less, or solar panels taking up acres of land.  The same with windmills.  Nuclear? Well, the opposition to nuclear is due to our having used the bomb to murder thousands of Japanese civilians.  It's stuck with us and we fear it, as that was our first use of it.  People will tell you they are worried about contamination and the like. Bah.  It's Hiroshima and Nagasaki they're worried about, even though that can't happen.

I'm old enough to remember when we had open pit uranium mining in Wyoming.  In the early 1980s I knew a few guys who worked out at the Shirley Basin mine site, including one who lived in the little, now abandoned, town of Shirley Basin.  I also knew some who lived and worked in Jeffrey City, where they worked in uranium mines.  When they closed down, the state was distraught.

Now it seems nobody remembers that, and the thought of anything nuclear drives people into fits of despair.

I think a lot of it is fear of change.

That in fact explains a lot about populism  And it explains why the current heavily right wing populist in Natrona County are adamantly against something that the populists in Washington D.C. reading Uglier Home and Paved Garden are for.

Change, we're told, is inevitable.  If it is, it's because we will it so, much of it through our absolute laziness.  We want our lives to be easier and more convenient just for us, but at the same time we want things to stay the way they are.

Which for a person like me, whose an introverted, introspective, agrarian, is particularly amusing in some ways.

I really hate change, myself, and I also want things to be the way they were.  But not five or ten years ago, like so many of the people who protest on these matters.  Indeed, many are quite new imports.

Victor Colorado, 1900.  One of these houses was my great grandparents'.

I'd like them to be like they were in 1879 when my family first arrived in this region. . . or even earlier if possible.  I'd settle for 1963, when I personally arrived.

I won't get those wishes.

I will note, however, a nuclear powered America might look more like American in 1879 than the one of 2025 does.  As I look out at all the protests I'm struck by how many people in Wyoming are absolutely wedded to the oil and gas industry.  It wasn't always so.

Back in the 1960s (I have a long memory) a lot of locals remained pretty skeptical about the oil and gas industry, in part because the state had recently been shafted for its reliance upon petroleum.  People loved it again in the 1970s but when that boom collapsed people swore to never be reliant upon it again.

We apparently got over that.

Now we fear what we know to be true.  Petroleum and coal won't last forever.  The dirty little secret of the petroleum industry in Wyoming anymore is that drilling is really for gas far more than petroleum oil.  Petroleum is on the way out, like it or not, and the United States is an expensive oil and gas province to drill in.  Absent actually prohibiting its import, which I wouldn't put past Donald Trump, Saudi petroleum will always be cheaper.  For that matter, Russian petroleum will always be as well and thinking you can really prohibit India China from importing it is absolute folly.  Coal, which we've dealt with extensively, in a slow but accelerating death spiral.

The sort of imaginary world so many in MAGA wish to return to.  Big powerful cars, driven by guys of course, but at the same time don't want to return to, as living without as much as these people did, compared to us, would be uncomfortable.

Donald Trump may say "drill baby drill", and put thousands of acres up for coal leasing, but Trump in many ways is the last dying gasp of of the 1950s.

And the 50s of our imaginations never existed.  But we fear that it didn't, as we fear the thought that our oil stained hands will reach the point where we'll have to grab a bar of Lava soap and scrub it off, forever.  The jobs will go away.

Funny thing is, from time to time, there's been serious proposals to put in something related to local agriculture, which was here in the beginning of our statehood, and still is.  Wyoming hadn't really supported a big ag project since the 1930s, and indeed local municipalities oppose things related to agriculture.  It's short sighted.

But then, perhaps I'm romantic about for various reasons that recent migrants to the state don't share.

FWIW, Desmond Holly, the Colorado school shooter whose crime occurred at the same time that Kirk was murdered, had been viewing far right, Nazi, content on his computer.

I wouldn't normally note that, but as the populist far right is busy trying to make a martyr out of Kirk as a victim of a left wing shooter (which so far we're not really certain was the motivation), it probably ought to be mentioned.

The US today has a late Weimar Republic feel to it.

The Aerodrome: Space Force HQ to move to Alabama.

The Aerodrome: Space Force HQ to move to Alabama.: 

Space Force HQ to move to Alabama.

The United States Space Force, the most junior, least needed, and most stupid branch of the American military, is moving to Huntsville, Alabama, in part because Donald Trump is demented vengeful twit.

Trump is responsible for the Space Farce in the first place, creating a new branch of the military for no sensible reason, by taking the Air Force Strategic Command, which did make sense, and making it its own branch of the military.  At least initially, it's enlisted members were reassigned from the Air Force to the Farce.  Officers may have been as well, but those officers in this role above the very senior level would have had little choice in any event.

The relocation from Colorado Springs will be expensive and may impair the ability of the Farce to perform its mission for a time.

President Biden really missed his chance and should have reassigned the Space Farce to the Air Force.  Frankly, if I was President, at this point I'd reassign it to the Coast Guard and put the Coast Guard back in the Department of the Treasury, where it belongs.  After commissioned Space Cadets resigned I might move it back to the Air Force.

Now Even A Rock Is Demanding The Release Of The Epstein Files

 Now Even A Rock Is Demanding The Release Of The Epstein Files

The 2025 Legislative Sessions of other states.

 

August 4, 2025

Texas Governor Abbott is threatening to remove Democrats who don't show up to vote on redistricting.

The Republican controlled legislature is being widely accused of gerrymandering in an attempt to retain control of the House of Representatives, where Mike Johnson sent Congressmen home early so they wouldn't be able to vote to open up the Epstein files.  The Democrats are making it impossible for the redistricting to be passed by being absent.

Seems strange to threaten to remove people when one's own party sends people home to avoid voting.

August 26, 2025

Colorado's legislature was called into special session due to budget problems caused by the Big Ugly.

Texas did redistrict, which means that it's almost certain California will.

Last edition:

The 2024 Legislative Sessions of other states.

Labels: 1860s, 1864, 2020s, 2024, 2024 Legislative Sessions of other states, Abortion, Arizona, Climate Change, Florida, Food, Politics, transgenderism, US Mexico Border Crisis, Utah

Thursday, April 24, 1975. Wings of Freedom

The last Pan Am flight out of South Vietnam occured.

The Last Pan Am Flight out of Vietnam

In April 1975, Pan Am's Mission 1965/31 evacuated its Vietnamese employees and anybody else who could fit on board the airline's Boeing 747

Episode 4: Evacuation of Saigon, Wings of Freedom Mission

Six terrorists of the Baader-Meinhof Gang (the "Red Army Faction") seized the West German embassy in Sweden.  They took eleven hostages and demanded the release of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, which the German government refused. They after killed two of the hostages before a bomb they took in the embassy accidentally exploded, allowing the hostages to escape and fatally injuring two of the terrorists.

The Swedish army took the rest prisoner.

The change in policy on negotiations with terrorists marked the beginning of the decline of domestic terrorism directed at West Germany.

Colorado Attorney General Joyce Murdoch invalidated all six marriage licenses for same-sex marriages that had been issued by Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 23, 1975. Ford addresses Vietnam at Tulane.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Gerald Ford, Khemr Rouge, Pol Pot, the spoken word, Vietnam War

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 80th Edition. Vanity.

Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!

Ecclesiastes.

“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday night. “I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one.”

Time Magazine.

“My portrait of President Trump has been called thoughtful, non-confrontational, not angry, not happy, not tweeting,” Boardman said at the time. “In five, 10, 15, 20 years, he will be another President on the wall who is only historical background, and he needs to look neutral.”

The artist, as quoted in Time.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 79th Edition. The Move along, nothing to see here addition.

Labels: Pete Hegseth, poster, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, The Second Trump Administration, wars, Wars and rumors of wars, Zeitgeist