BNSF Ballast Train Along The Royal Gorge Route

Located in Southern Colorado, Rock and Rail Railroad (a division of Martin Marietta Materials) moves various manifest rail shipments, occasional railcar storage moves, and track maintenance for the RGX Subdivision through Colorado's Royal Gorge. They also facilitate the loading of occasional BNSF/UP Rock and Ballast Trains at the Martin Marietta Quarry located in Parkdale. These moves usually occur in the dead of night; but on extremely rare occasions, various delays stemming from either BNSF or UP will force Rock and Rail to get these massive unit trains West through the Royal Gorge in the late afternoon.
That ended up being the case in this video, where Engineer Sean A. and Conductor Tyler R. needed to hustle this ballast train Westbound before reaching the end of their Hours-of-Service limitations. Watch here as they carry the train through Canon City, and into the siding at Parkdale where the train will be marshalled into place for loading that would occur the following night.
If memory serves correctly, it had been roughly FOUR YEARS since something like this had happened, so this ended up being an excellent daytime treat across the Rio Grande's World-renowned Royal Gorge Route! Rate. Comment. Subscribe. Enjoy!!! Copyright Nick Valdez Railroad Photography 2024.

[@johndavey72]

Hello Nick . As usual , superb footage . These trains are manificent beasts indeed . Thanks Nick😊

[@haroldreardon1407]

It says this is a ballast train but the cars are NOT built to dump ballast. They are flat bottom gondolas so what might be the reason for the run?

[@packet40]

Very cool - thanks for putting out the effort to grab these shots!

[@ronaldjennings8057]

👍👍👍👍💪✌️👍🙏🚂

[@tcp3059]

Love it