844 Comes to Pueblo

For those of you who are not familiar with the legendary 844 or how big of an event it is when she runs, let me enlighten you.  The 844 is one of two steam engines owned by Union Pacific that are currently operational.  This steam engine is massive, unlike most of the steam trains running around the United States.  She is a 4-8-4 which means that she has four drivers (wheels for those non train buffs) in the front, eight in the middle and four at the back of the steam locomotive.  Like this:

The other steam engine that Union Pacific runs is called the Challenger or 3985.  She is a 4-6-6-4 engine and I would give anything to see her run.  She however, has had some mechanical issues and hasn't really run since 2008.  Every year we hope to see her once again, but so far she sits silently in the shed.

Both of these engines are housed in Cheyenne, Wyoming in the Union Pacific yard.  The 844 usually does a few trips a year and massive amounts of people show up.  There is one event however, that occurs every year and that is Frontier Days sponsored by the Denver Post.  She picks up passengers in Denver and takes them to Cheyenne where they see a rodeo and other events.  Then later that day she takes them back down to Denver.  That is another story though...

In November of 2011, the 844 took a 30 day journey across Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California etc etc.  You get the picture, they did it for New Mexico and Arizona's Centennial Anniversary.  This was really exciting because she was coming down to Pueblo, CO.  Can you imagine? That big of an engine and she's actually coming through my hometown.  Well the Misfits weren't about to let this event go to waste and we chased her over the course of three days.  Are you ready? It's going to be wild.

It left Castle Rock on a Sunday and four of the crew members decided to go up: Ed, Milissa, Josh and I. We met her just outside of Palmer Lake on an embankment that caught the train on a bridge and a curve.  Couldn't ask for anything better. However, we weren't the only ones there and we had to stake our turf pretty quickly.  So here we go up this embankment (mountain to me) where we find other people.  That's the thing about train chasers, if you don't have the courtesy to avoid getting in other peoples' way, then you will be ejected or have a riot on your hands.  The train was running later than normal and we ended up standing there for at least an hour.  Finally we heard the familiar whistle as she drew closer.  It was here that some ninny decided to walk up and stand in about 10-15 peoples shots.  Some of the other chasers warned him (mind you he showed up with a  camera phone, while we have the big guns.) He got pretty upset and I thought we were gonna start throwing rocks at him because we had waited too long for this guy to get in our way.  The pictures came out pretty good and it was now time to chase the train.  There was one problem for me...I don't do well coming down mountains.  I tend to get too much momentum and have the tendency to fall ass over tin cup.  So I was trying to go down the mountain as quickly as I could without tipping over.  I was doing pretty good when I started to pick up steam.  I felt like I was the 844 coming down the mountain and I panicked. Instead of throwing myself down on the ground or my camera for that matter, I threw the water bottle I was carrying and some how didn't fall.  (Really unsure of how that happened, but I'm thankful none the less.)

We headed back to Palmer Lake, where we hit bumper to bumper traffic.  I have never seen so many people congregated in one place.  Later when we were talking to one of the engineers they said they had to walk the train out, they've never had to do that before.  We weren't going to get any shots of the train and decided to go find another place further down the road.  When we got there, there were many people already congregated but enough room that they wouldn't be in the shot.  Josh went up on a hill behind me (I didn't go, big surprise there right?) Milissa and Ed went further down the tracks.  When she came storming by we only had a few minutes to get back in front of her.  Josh and I race off to the car, but we don't have the keys.  Milissa comes up pretty quickly but there is no Ed.  Most people have gotten back in the car and have left but we're still sitting there.  Finally he comes around the corner and seems to be limping a bit.  When we get back on the road we find out Ed got tangled and fell a short ways off the mountain.  He cut up his hand and broke the point and shoot camera he had.  Although it was actually his camera, Milissa had been using it.  He felt terrible and kept apologizing.  It was pretty funny.  She wasn't mad and he was able to fix the screen later, but we couldn't stop teasing him about falling down.  (I was thankful it wasn't me).

We didn't beat it back to Colorado Springs, but stopped to take pictures at it from the depot.  It wouldn't run until Tuesday where it would go to Pueblo and sit for another day.  

On Tuesday, the whole crew decided to chase the train from Colorado Springs to Pueblo.  We found a spot and waited patiently.  We were in two different cars: Ken, Mary, Carrie and I; Josh, Ed and Milissa.  It worked out better this way because the train wasn't even to our spot when my dad was called into work.  He left us in the middle of nowhere next to Interstate 25.  We were lucky that Ed and Milissa had the "D" or we would have missed the train too.  

There is nothing like chasing this beautiful engine down I-25 at 75mph.  All the cars seemed to slow down and watch as this giant thundered down to Pueblo.  There was also the mob of cars that had been following it down from Colorado Springs.  We tried to get a picture of it as it came into Pueblo, but we just weren't fast enough and we were sprinting up a hill to set up.  It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.  She backed into the Pueblo Depot and hundreds of people came out to meet her.  These past two days we had clear skies and it was pretty warm for November.  However, Colorado is known for it's weird weather and the next few days a cold front came in.  This included the possibility of a blizzard or blizzard like conditions.

The day for the 844 departure arrived and we woke to snow covered ground.  Somehow my father managed to get the day off and my mom, dad, Ed, Milissa, Josh and I climbed in the "D" and prepared for battle.  We had coats, gloves, hats, long sleeve shirts, sweaters and thick pants; we were ready.  Making our way to Avondale we parked our car on a crossing just outside of town.  The wind was whipping making it bitterly cold.  We sat in the car waiting, no sense in freezing if we didn't have to.  Josh has a scanner that we listen to for communication of the trains: she was leaving Pueblo.  We scrambled out of Pueblo and waited...and waited.  I left my hat in the car and felt I would be ok, but after a few minutes, I realized if I didn't cover my ears soon, they would break off like an icicle.  I can't tell you how cold it was.

We scrambled back into the "D" and discovered our feet were covered in mud.  The ground wasn't frozen enough turning the dirt into mud.  It was going to be a long day.  We followed it past Fowler, Rocky Ford, and La Junta.  Our favorite train chaser came with us (yacka$$) and we had fun screaming out the window at his camera's.  (We couldn't stop him from chasing, but we sure could screw up his audio and sometimes we would put our car right in front of his cameras.  Yeah we play dirty too!)  The further east we got, the worse the weather became.  This didn't stop us.  We hit La Junta and had potty breaks and refueled our tummies.  We continued on to Las Animas where we planned to stop chasing it.  Since it had to stop in La Junta for 15 mins we left before it trying to avoid the caravan that was following it.  At Las Animas the snow was just starting to fall.  The wind was whipping, knocking us back.  We tried to hunker down in our coats but it didn't really help.  Out of the white that was forming around us came the front end of the engine.  She was beautiful and I don't care who you are, seeing her in the snow was by far the best.  (In my opinion that is)

We watched her turn and head towards Springfield.  We had a decision, follow her to Springfield or call it a day?  The snow was getting worse and the wind was whipping, but we couldn't give her up.  By now the inside of the "D" was covered in mud.  We've made so many stops on the side of the road that there is more mud on the inside than on the outside.  Our pants, shoes, floor and seats have mud all over them.  Milissa, who is shorter than the rest of us, has grown six inches from the mud.  She was pretty happy about it.  There was a road that the tracks followed called 101 which would take us into Springfield.  We begin to follow it down and find a good spot in front of her.  Josh heads down the track aways because we feel we have a lot of time.  We were wrong.  Josh starts screaming she's around the corner and we all fly into position.  She decides to open it up and she's hauling.  I didn't get very many shots off because I've never seen her move this fast.  Josh sprints back to the car so we don't have to wait for him, but the mud is so thick and he's moving so fast he runs right out of his shoes.  Yup, that's right folks, we have a sprinter on our hands.  He had to back track and find his shoe before we could go.  

Back on the road we're making pretty good time, but we have to get around the people that are pacing the train (yacka$$).  What we didn't know was that 101 turned into a dirt road but it wasn't dirt anymore.  It's mud and it's slick as hell.  There's one other problem we're facing, no cell service and we weren't smart enough to bring a map.  We have no idea where we are.  The storm has settled around us and in every direction you see white, that is until the windows get covered in mud and we can't see anything.  We sat in silence and we watch out the front window.  Ed can't go very fast because he risks running off the road, we don't know where we are and we can't see the train.  All we can do is wait and hope that we find our way to Springfield.  Ed's knuckles were white on the wheel and we kept telling him what a good job he's doing.  He was worried and so were we.  The only good thing was that we were able to defrost from standing out in the mud.  By now we're sure that the train has beat us to Springfield and there's no way we'll beat it.  We only focus on surviving this road, constantly scanning the area in front of us hoping we'll find paved road.  What seems like an eternity (an hour+) the wheels on the "D" find paved road and we're off again.  Another surprise waits for us: she hasn't beat us to Springfield and we get one more shot for the day.  We fly across the tracks pull off and hustle out of the car.  The bitter cold from the wind stings our face and it's blowing so hard it knocked over Milissa and my mom.  I've never experience anything like that before.

      

When we got into the city limits of Springfield, we practically had to peel Ed from behind the wheel.  The drive did a number on him, but he was our hero even to this day.  On our way back to Pueblo, the storm had cleared and there were blue skies.  Gotta love Colorado! 

A little tid bit of information, when Ed cleaned the "D", he had 3 huge trash bags of mud from the days' trip.  Now that's a lot of mud!

Up until recently, this was the wildest train chasing adventure we have had!!  But you will have to wait a little while longer to hear about that one...