Last month, Mike Stimpson asked where Dave Moffat thought he was going. While I don't know what he might have been thinking, or for sure what stopped him from getting there; I did find out one thing. It doesn't seem that topography was what killed the D&SL.

It now seems that he could have easily gotten from Craig Colorado to Salt Lake City, on a very practical route somewhat near US40, as far as Heber Valley, and then turning though the Provo Canyon to the Utah and Salt Lake Valleys.

I mentioned back then that if this old retired nerd got bored enough and had the time, he might check it out. Well - I got sick. Sicker 'n' Hell actually! - A very severe respiratory infection. Well, you have all kinds of time on your hands when you can't do nothin'. And as you begin to recover, all that loose time turns into profound boredom!

To kill the boredom, I got on the google satellite and took a virtual trip while I was recovering, from Craig to Heber. The whole of US40 is not only well covered by google satellite pictures, but also terrain maps showing contours and Street Views the whole distance.

What I found surprised me! Craig is near the eastern side of a very gently rolling great plain, much of which is flat or or slightly tilted; and is broken up here and there by shallow rolling hills. Most of the contour interest is only near the rivers. East of Craig are rolling hills that get more rugged the further east you go. But the tracks are already there so that is irrelevant anyway. Westward, this same general pattern of flat to gentle rolling hills persists until about 20 miles west of Duchesne; after which the topology becomes intermittently rugged the rest of the way into Heber Valley.

While there may be some engineering challenges the last 40 miles getting into the valley, there is nothing so significant, that David Moffat could not have reasonably believed that this was a viable route to Salt Lake City. In fact, west of Craig this route would appear to have been considerably superior the Spanish Fork Canyon route of the D&RG. Anyway, Mr. Moffat may well have known what he was doing, but something got in the way.

Wikipedia had this to say about that:

"Some had said that he had vainly spent fourteen million dollars on the dream of a railroad directly west from Denver. The Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway had cost him $75,000 a mile, and Rollins Pass had cost him the rest of his fortune.

"He was in New York city trying to raise more money, and was stopped by what would later be learned was the doing of E. H. Harriman and George Jay Gould I. He was one of the greatest threats they had faced in years.

"Although Moffat was looked at the time as a vain dreamer, he would later be viewed by many as ahead of his time. His legacy would leave Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and later Union Pacific Railroad with a railroad that would outlast most other rail lines in Colorado. He would have Moffat Tunnel and Moffat County, Colorado named after him."

So indeed, it was not the topology west of Craig, that buried the Denver & Salt Lake, it was dirty pool by Moffat's competitors.

OPB