As part of the three months I took off from the day job this spring (2024), I woke up the morning of March 4 and decided it was way too nice to spend yet another day in the house. Since it was a weekday, I decided I’d head out and see if I could find Colorado Pacific doing anything on the old Towner Line. They’d recently acquired a bunch of old BNSF SD70MACs and were repainting and refurbishing them up at Alamosa (on their sister Colorado Pacific Rio Grande railroad), and the rumor was that the days of the SD40-2s were numbered. (Note – SD70MAC #620 has arrived on the property as of the end of July 2024.) I didn’t really expect to find them doing anything, but it was better than staying home.

Completely by accident, I caught up with a eastbound cut of 22 empty grain cars just before Haswell around 1300h. Apparently they’d gone and fetched them from NA Junction that morning and were hauling them out to the opposite end of the line – a new elevator built at the siding known as Stuart. Or maybe “formerly known”? I’ve heard they may have renamed it. (Update: Apparently now named “Stockton”) Regardless, it’s just west of Towner and they’ve built a massive new concrete elevator out there for grain storage and loading.

There’s not a whole lot else to say. The east end of the Towner Line doesn’t offer a lot of scenic variety, particularly for eastbounds on a winter afternoon with awkward light. But I pulled some decent stuff out that might be of interest.