Great Western (Colorado)

Company History: The GWR was built by the Great Western Sugar Company in 1901 with a mainline between Loveland and Longmont, Colorado. A trio of branchlines were built to Eaton, Welty and Milliken for a total length of 57 miles of route. The GWR was best known for hauling sugar beets for the parent company. During harvest season, traffic swelled considerably. So much so that GWR would fire up steam locomotives to help handle the sugar beet rush well into the 1960s. The diesel fleet typically hovered around a dozen units – mostly geeps with switchers from EMD and Alco taking the supporting roles. They wore several different paint schemes over the years but the nicest thing you could say about any of them was they were “high visibility.”

The sugar company sold the railroad in 1986 to BRAE Corporation. About that time, GWR also became the designated operator of the former Southern Pacific route between Alturas, California and Lakeview, Oregon. That arrangement lasted for 11 years before operations were turned over to the Lake County Railroad.

Today, Great Western is part of the OmniTRAX family of shortlines. During the OmniTRAX years, more line was acquired on the north end resulting in routes to Fort Collins and Greeley. Total mileage for the GWR today stands at 80. OmniTRAX refers to the GWR as the Great Western Railway of Colorado although the “of Colorado” does not appear on locomotives or other equipment. Customers include Anheuser-Busch, Vestas, Front Range Ethanol, Eastman Kodak, Owens-Illinois, AllWeather Wood, Universal Forest Products, Amalgamated Sugar and Wedron Silica.

Successor/Parent History: OmniTRAX, Inc is one of North America’s largest private railroad and transportation management companies with interests in railroads, terminals, ports and industrial real estate. OmniTRAX operates a network of 21 regional and short line railroads that cover 12 states in the US and 3 provinces in Canada. The company’s railroads have interchanges with BNSF, CN, CSXT, NS & UP, and transport commodities within the Agricultural, Aggregate & Industrial Mineral, Energy, Food, Crude Oil, Chemical, Lumber, Metal, Petroleum and Plastic industries.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.