DENVER — On Feb. 14 another piece of Colorado railroad history will slip away as Union Pacific closes its Burnham Shops in Denver. Once the second largest UP shop behind Jenks Shop in North Little Rock, Ark., the loss of Burnham closes another chapter in the history of the late and much beloved Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad.
Burnham was the famed Rio Grande’s “home” shop, the epicenter of a three-state system that once included both standard and narrow gauge steam locomotives. The area was named after George Burnham, a principle in the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Starting as a small facility in the late 1870s, Burnham grew into a massive locomotive and car shop complex. Workers at Burnham built, repaired, and maintained all types of equipment at the shops.
For instance, Burnham rebuilt standard gauge 2-8-0s into narrow gauge K-37 class 2-8-2s in the late 1920s. You can still see eight of the 10 engines Burnham rebuilt today. The largest steam locomotives on the railroad, Alco 2-8-8-2s, called the shops home. The Burnham car shops also helped keep the famous Ski Train in top shape and built cabooses.
Some older shop buildings were constructed in the 1880s, but what became the diesel shop was built in the early 20th century. In 1988, when Rio Grande bought Southern Pacific, the new SP spent $15 million overhauling the facility. It transferred work and employees from its old heavy rebuild shop in Sacramento to the rebuilt 146,000-square-foot Burnham Shops in February 1992.
According to UP’s Info Magazine, in the 1990s the Burnham production line was designed to produce 365 locomotive overhauls a year, but the facility never reached its ambitious goals, releasing at its peak 233 locomotives in one year.
UP informed shop employees on Nov. 16 that Burnham would close Feb. 14. The railroad blamed the closing on the decline in coal carloadings in Colorado, with the number of coal trains originating in the state decreasing 80 percent since 2005. But railroads have been reducing the number of shops on their systems for years, and with other shops not that far away in North Platte and South Morrill, Neb., it is likely that UP looked at Burnham as simply one shop too many.
UP says it plans to offer that land for sale. A future owner which is likely to meld the property into Denver’s urban development as more people decide to live in the city rather than the suburbs.
