The Belt Line Layout

I think that most people when they think of the D&RGW, think of the trains conquering a mountain pass, traveling through canyons, threading through tunnels, or of its narrow gauge roots. Fewer would think of the lines racing across the desert, or some of the obscure branches that reach out to connect the far flung corners of Utah and Colorado to the world. I had never given much thought to the Belt Line, the operations centered on Denver, at least not until an article in The Prospector. The Prospector is published by the Rio Grande Modeling and Historical Society, which is a wealth of information about the D&RGW in general. However, in this 2006 article, I was introduced to the Belt Line. 

Having been exposed to operating model trains by this point, I had found that I really like dispatching, then being a yardmaster, and then being a road engineer. However, I know a lot of operators treasure the job of running a local switch job. This is also reflected in a lot of modern layout designs, and even a trend towards modeling specific terminals and virtually eliminating the mainline. The Belt Line is that for the D&RGW.

The Belt Line begins at North Yard, and exits through Utah Junction. The line then proceeds across the northern end of Denver, ending up near the Union Pacific 38th Street yard. The line does see some through traffic, once hosting Rock Island Trains into North Yard, but also seeing coal trains either headed for the PSC Cherokee power plant, or being handed off to UP to go east. There are really five jobs that work the branch, each focusing on a particular stretch of track.

The Short Belt Job works the industries close to North Yard, up to the Washington Park lead. The Washington Job works the Washington Park lead to the north of the Belt Line. The Long Belt then works the industries past the Washington Park Job, including the Stockyards branch. In addition, there is the PSC job which works the PSC Cherokee plant. And finally, there is the UP job which runs transfers to the Union Pacific. In addition to these five jobs, the D&RGW was fairly customer friendly and would often send extras out to switch a customer as needed.

In addition, out of North Yard, there is the Rocky Local, which runs west to the Rocky Flats Branch and works industries along the line in Arvada. The Burlington Northern Beer Trains out to the Golden Branch and Coors Brewery to the west often would stop in drop and add cars from the D&RGW at North Yard. There is also a South Denver Local, and a Burnham Local that work parts of the line to the south of North Yard. In addition, there used to be an Association Local that operated to the west through Lakewood to the Denver Federal Center until the mid 1980s. I had forgotten this line until recently, when I came across a few pictures of it, and in particular an at grade crossing of US Highway 6 in Lakewood. It isn't often that a 6 lane highway is interrupted by a grade crossing with traffic lights hanging over the tracks. But I do remember just that!

Parts of the Belt Line are now operated by the Denver and Rock Island Railroad, so there is also room for a shortline to ply the rails.

To model this line, I would focus a bit more on the jobs, than the actual trackage. Operationally, the LDEs would be:

• North Yard;
• The Short Belt Job;
• The Long Belt Job (which I would separate from the Stockyards Job);
• The PSC Job/PSC Switcher;
• The Stockyards Job (broken out from the Long Belt Job);
• The Washington Job; and
• The UP Turn.

Given enough space, I would love then to add some more jobs, namely the:

• Rocky Local (which would mean running the main line at least as far as Clay or Plain siding, but also allow me to justify having Denver's Union Station modeled)
• The Beer Line (which could then also add crews for Coors itself and at Golden Yard)
• The South Denver Local
• The Burnham Local; and
• I would revive the Association Job as well.

That is as many as 12-16 jobs, plus the ability to run some overhead traffic, at least for a few miles out of Denver. Plus, there are some substantial industries to model. The PSC Cherokee Plant, Gates Rubber, Cargill Grain, Coors Brewery, and the Conoco Oil Refinery. Even the Colorado Railroad Museum is not too far from the Golden Branch. Obviously, this plan can be up-sized and down-sized by adding or removing some of the jobs. In most cases, these jobs could even be replaced by staging. The nice thing is that the layout could be very functional once the track for one job was in place. And even with all the sections in place, operations could be very flexible because most of these jobs were not daily, but instead ran a couple of days a week. So, with a few operators, we would just run a few jobs, and with more operators, I would simply up the frequency of jobs.

Scenically, the LDEs include:

• Denver;
• Denver Union Station;
• Barbara Gulch;
• Big 10 Curves (Rocky/Cliff sidings) including maybe Coal Creek Canyon, and Tunnel 1;
• Crossings of the South Platte (2) and Cherry Creek (1);
• US 6 Grade Crossing (if the Association Branch is modeled); and
• Burnham Shops (Later Denver Diesel)

The scenery does not match up to grandeur of the other layout concepts I have described so far. But I can see that there is a lot of operational potential in the layout. I've operated on a similar layout based on similar jobs focused on Seattle, owned by Pete Doty, which was fantastic. So, I know that this concept would be enjoyable. But, the role of the dispatcher is more minimal. Once trains reach their work areas, they are essentially operating on their own, except for the Short Belt, Long Belt, Rocky and Beer Line jobs. Since the overhead traffic would be only between Plain/Cliff and North Yard (I probably wouldn't model the UP/BN/BNSF traffic, or the Joint Line traffic), what is there for the Dispatcher to do?

One possibility is to virtualize the rest of the line. I've considered just that to extend some of m model railroad concepts beyond the model. Basically, having trains moving on the dispatcher's board until they are ready to emerge on the layout when they would then emerge from staging. This would allow the Dispatcher to coordinate trains entering/leaving the layout with the staging master. Conceptually, these engineers could be entirely virtual, or could be from operators online through a web interface. I have even heard of this being done with a remote Dispatcher controlling the railroad from somewhere else on the internet. It is an interesting idea - a model layout that is virtually enhanced beyond the railroad room.