Victorian Advertising of the Rio Grande

Rio Grande Western advertisement, from the back cover of a mining guide for Mercur (then part of the Camp Floyd mining district) entitled Utah Revealed. No publishing date is known.

Photos: Tintic Branch MP 0 (Springville)

This little dwarf signal and accompanying switch stand control the junction with the Tintic Branch at approximately MP 0 (D&RGW main MP 695.8; Union Pacific MP 75) in Springville.

All taken September 2012.

History: Thistle coal track, 1965

In the future I will be posting digitized Authorities for Expenditure like this one, most of which have been copied from Colorado Railroad Museum collections by Jerry Day. These are invaluable in pinning down dates that locomotives, cars, structures and tracks were constructed or scrapped.

DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN
Authority for Expenditure No. 6557
Location: Thistle, Utah (Joint Utah Railway)

Date to be Started: April 1965
Date Completed: May 1965

Description:
Retire 840 Track Feet of Track No. 104 Rv. Including two turnouts.

Purpose and Necessity:
This trackage should be retired since the coaling facilities previously retired
and new sanding facilities recently constructed have made it no longer necessary
for Railroad purposes.

History: Castle Gate and Victorian Poetry (1887)

AT CASTLE GATE

W. E. PABOR. 

“Stand, stranger, stand. The castle gate

Through which you pass to fairy land

Is mine to guard. What happy fate

Bids you within its border? Stand!”

Warder of this stately castle,

Stay the menace of your hand,

I am but a simple singer

Singing songs throughout the land.

Through the time-stained rugged portals

I can catch a glimpse afar,

Where the light shines on the woodland

Like the light of the morning star.

Let me pass, Oh stern-faced warder,

Through the wondrous castle gate;

Let me walk within the garden

Led by fancy and by fate.

For the sunlight and the moonlight

And the starlight, as they fall,

Seem replete with happy fancies

Making pictures on the wall.

Gateway to a happy valley,

Open wide and let my feet

Wander in the flowery meadows

Where the shining waters meet.

Frowning cliffs lift up to front me,

Sunset hues the rocks that rise,

But my eyes have caught a vision

Of green fields and violet skies.

Lying over Soldier Summit

In the valleys of the West,

With the bloom and Blush of Eden

Lying softly on their breast,

Vales of splendor, vales of beauty,

Meet to melt a heart of stone;

Vale of Tempe pales in glory

When beside they brightness shown.

Other lips have uttered fancies,

Other eyes on thee have shone,

Other feet have walked these meadows,

Passing through the gate of stone.

But my lips can not keep silence,

Or my eyes their rapture bate,

As they catch a glimpse of Eden

Through the cliff-crowned Castle Gate.

“Pass, stranger, pass, the olden time

Was full of song of mirth and cheer;

Sing any song that suits your rhyme,

And let it echo round the year.”

-From Rhymes of the Rockies, published by the Denver & Rio Grande Passenger Department.