Number 4111 continues its northward journey to Denver as it passes the Rock Island roundhouse.

The right-hand tunnel at the rear of the picture is Rock Island property. In the tunnel, is a stub-end single track just long enough to store the Colorado Springs section of the Rocky Mountain Rocket. The section backs into the Colorado Springs station from this trackage. When it is time to leave, the section will pull out nose first and head for the tunnel. In staging, it will imaginarily join with the Denver section and head eastward to Chicago.

Emerging from the left hand tunnel is the narrow gauge line from Deer Creek. Here in Colorado Springs, it will become dual gauge track as it shares right of way with standard gauge from the yard. It will terminate near Edmier Cement at the other end of Colorado Springs.

The lumberyard on the narrow gauge line often receives lumber from the sawmill in Deer Creek via the narrow gauge railroad.

The east end of the depot tracks in Colorado Springs have automated block signals on the main line as the relay box and signal indicate. The tower is still necessary to govern movements in the yard. It appears that the yardmaster is on duty, judging by the car in the parking lot.

It appears that a conifer was removed to lessen the chance of an accident or a disruption in automobile and rail traffic.

Due to limited space, we model only the platform for the Denver, Rio Grande & Western station in Colorado Springs. The unmodeled station would be in the aisle.

In actual usage, only southbound passenger trains would stop here at the DRG&W station. Northbound passenger trains would stop at the station operated by the Colorado & Southern Railroad and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, on the other side of the yard. Once again, space prevents us from modeling the platform or the station.

The signal at the west end of Colorado Springs tells us that we are entering single track territory between here and Castle Rock, where the line become double-tracked. The real line was double-tracked over this stretch, but the aisle width here would be too narrow, if the layout was double-tracked at this point.

Edmier Cement is humming with activity today.

Leaving Edmier Cement.

Palmer Lake was a scheduled stop for important trains that used this trackage, but we use it as only a flag stop to keep things moving during operating sessions.