Here's a photo I took on February 03, 1974, FIFTY YEARS AGO, at the D&RGW station in Grand Junction, CO. It's a system map that hung over an open doorway (hence the light flare toward the bottom of the photo) and it was unusual in that certain portions of it lit up. It would be interesting to know where this probably one-of-a-kind piece of collectible railroadiana ended up.

This was my first trip on the "Rio Grande Zephyr" and I flew from Orange County airport to Salt Lake City on a Hughes Airwest DC9, making an intermediate stop in Las Vegas. I rode the train round trip to and from Denver and then returned to southern California on a Western Airlines 737 and a Golden West Airlines DeHaviland Twin Otter.

I was suitably impressed with the train and would make other trips on it in later years until it was discontinued in 1983.

Here's my flight records. Due to bad weather or some other reason, my itinerary was changed on the way back that offered me two "new" airlines I had never flown before, plus a "new" airport -- Fullerton.

February 02, 1974 RW 0862 SNA-LAS 1315- DC9
February 02, 1974 RW 0862 LAS-SLC 1425-1627 DC9
February 05, 1974 WA 0161 SLC-LAX 1055-1125 737
February 05, 1974 GW 0340 LAX-FUL 1300-1315 DTO
February 05, 1974 GW 0340 FUL-SNA 1320-1335 DTO

I didn't record the tail numbers of the aircraft and, after fifty years, it's probably safe to assume that information is lost to history.