The Denver & Rio Grande Western, while perhaps more remembered for it’s famous narrow gauge operations, is also famous for it’s extensive passenger service through the Rocky Mountains. One such train was the Royal Gorge, which was operated from 1946 to 1967. During the final year of operation, the train was operated between Denver, Colorado and Salida, Colorado and was run daily. The train was typically run with two or three cars.

“Royal Gorge” near Cotopaxi, Colorado. Photo by Steve Patterson

Wil Hata has chosen to model the 1967 train, consisting of an F7A and F7B unit with a baggage car and Pullman passenger car. Bright light orange was used as the DRGW’s signature orange-yellow color combined with light bluish grey. The results are, there’s no other word for it, awesome.

The 1967 Royal Gorge by Wil Hata

The F7A and B units are modified from Tony Sava’s design. Scott Roys’ models also served as inspiration for some modifications. A keen eye can spot just four parts in the nose and windshield assembly that are not available in bright light orange. Yellow parts were substituted in these cases.

Wil’s F7A

The B unit was lengthened by two studs. Both the locomotive units are powered with a pair of Power Functions train motors.

Wil’s F7B

The baggage car is a prototype from American Car & Foundry built in the year 1910. The door windows are achieved by a decal (this and other decals provided by OKBrickWorks), and the end walls of the car were inspired by Aaron Burnett’s Crescent passenger cars with a few modifications.

Wil’s baggage car

The passenger car is a 1950 Pullman-Standard prototype.

Wil’s passenger car

I asked Wil a couple questions about his models and the modeling process:

What was it like working with a rare color like bright light orange?

Surprisingly easy, as that color has been in enough sets for there to be enough part variety or for there to be easily substituted parts if a very specific one didn’t exist in BLO. Of course a handful of the parts do not exist, so other colors had to be subbed in (or in the case of the baggage car doors, I used decals to recreate the windows). Additionally I needed very few weird parts if you will, so most were basic bricks and pates.

What was the greatest challenge of the train?

I wouldn’t say there was a particular car or locomotive that was difficult in terms of construction. It was more so getting the details down right, particularly for the passenger equipment, and finding appropriate photos to use as the basis. Finding good photographs of the cars, particularly the baggage car, was challenging. I found myself having to dive into various Rio Grande books in attempts to find images. The baggage car, as an example, was probably the hardest as I was only able to locate one good view of that particular car, and that was for only one side. So I had to do the other side of the car purely based on context clues and the few photos I could fins of other cars that were built as part of the same batch.

Excellent work, Wil.

More photos can be found on Wil’s Flickr page.