Outside Adventures!, tierneytravels

Train Ride to Glenwood Springs, CO and More – Part II

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Okay continuing the story I started on July 17, 2021 about my sister’s visit and our train ride to Glenwood Springs, Colorado in June 2021 – Train Ride to Glenwood Springs, CO and More – Part I.

Waiting for the Train

Our trip started early in the morning at Denver’s Union Station. Union Station is the prettiest train station I’ve ever been in (including several I’ve been at in Europe):

Image credit: Wikipedia
Image credit: LA Times

Here are several of my images as we waited for the train in lovely surroundings:

And if you’d like to see some images I took in the “Silvertone” setting on my camera:

Our train was arriving in the station around 8:00 am but we got there an hour early and had coffee/tea and pastries while lounging on one of the comfortable sofas in the station.

The station is so beautiful you’d want to just grab your laptop and go work on a blog post with a cup of tea or coffee, even if you were not catching a train!

Train Ride to Glenwood Springs, Colorado

6 hours sounds like a long time to be on a train, but not if you get to spend the time having delicious snacks, catching up with your sister, and seeing amazing scenery as we traveled this route:

See the 5 hour 41 minute route

Driving to Glenwood Springs is a 4 hour trip but I think the additional 2+ hours (the train ride was over 6+ hours due to having to slow down while going over the Continental Divide) is worth it because you are not driving I-70 at steep inclines as you climb up the mountains (not only steep inclines and sharp curves but also some crazy drivers who all seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere…).

From the article Prepare to be Blown Away on the Best Train Ride in Colorado:

After departing Denver’s Union Station westbound, the train begins the section of railway that made the Zephyr famous—a 300-mile journey over the Colorado Rocky Mountains, along the Colorado River and through Glenwood Canyon. Because roadways take a different route, much of the landscape through which the train travels is viewable only to rail passengers.

As the train leaves the Eastern Slope behind, it travels through 31 tunnels before entering the 6.2-mile Moffat Tunnel and crosses the Continental Divide. Passengers are plunged into darkness for nearly 10 minutes before emerging back into daylight at the west portal, near Winter Park Ski Area.

The route continues on the Western Slope of Colorado through remote Fraser Canyon, Granby—the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park and rugged Gore Canyon. The final 12.5 miles through Glenwood Canyon are among the most spectacular, with unimpeded views of the headwaters of the mighty Colorado River, the historic Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant, the Glenwood Canyon Recreation Path, and of course, the soaring 1,300-foot cliffs.

The seats in coach were very comfortable and were modified recliners with leg lifts so you could put your feet up. Here we are enjoying one of the many snacks we packed for the train ride in our cooler:

Relaxing train ride, visiting with sister, snacks and a magazine = happiness

Now comes the difficult part of writing this post: deciding which of the zillion photos we took during the train ride to Glenwood Springs to share with you, without blowing out my blog’s media allotment (and I have an upgraded WordPress plan!). Every time we thought we’d seen the most amazing sight out of our train window another amazing sight appeared! And as you can guess, the pictures do not do justice to what it was like to actually be looking out the window.

So I will use the rest of this post to share those images I selected. For the most part the images are in the order that we saw them on the train ride. You will see at times we are traveling along the Colorado River. Oh and one of the photos is of the observation car which has large windows/glass dome – passengers can take turns sitting in the car to get a more 360 degree view.

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And here are a couple short video clips I uploaded to YouTube to provide more visuals (the first one was a “jaw-dropping” experience):

Part III of this series of posts will talk about our time in Glenwood Spring, CO.

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

33 thoughts on “Train Ride to Glenwood Springs, CO and More – Part II”

  1. Goodness, the Train station is absolutely beautiful, I´ve never seen anything like it. The trip sounds really awesome, and the photos are great, thanks for sharing.

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  5. Even the station is a sight in itself, lovely building! I did some research on Colorado for a project last year and couldn’t get enough of the magnificent landscape. Must have been amazing on the train!

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  7. Thanks for the great pictures. Colorado is just covered in beautiful scenery, and is especially pretty at other times than in snow. Of course, snow is beautiful too, but different.

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  8. I want to do that trip!!! I love train trips (way better than flying) and this one is spectacular. And your train station is so gorgeous ….are you sure it wasn’t really a public library reading room? I thought the mountains would be more forested. I guess that is the case with the mountains further north?

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    1. Okay so fly over and we’ll head out 🙂
      Ah yes – you are right – the train station does look like a public library reading room! You nailed it! I was trying to figure out why it looked sort of familiar. Our mountains are not very forested in regards to some of the Rocky Mountains.

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  11. The start of your trip, that Train Station that Anne has said “reading room only” – looks full of comfort and just things to see. As Tammie said, she would be people watching. That’s one of my favourite things to do when I’m out anywhere.
    Then your actual train ride, I love looking at the wide open spaces that you have there in America with a sudden appearance of what looks like a pioneer homestead (I imagine in window those steep roofs are for snow) and a lone guy on the river…

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    1. Glad you enjoyed it! The train ride was spectacular (though after about 5 hours on the train I was ready to arrive and walk about the town); and I just posted what it was like when we got to town. The lone on the river was cool and there we lots of groups of people out boating on the river I just did not include all those photos.

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