C&S 1006 Timeline, part 2: 1950s, Sinking in the Gravel

Sinking in the Gravel

1950s

The book Georgetown and the Loop goes on to say that
"over the ten year period [since being put on display in 1941] the wheels just sank into the gravel.

"A view from the caboose roof showing its tilted but still intact stack.  The old Buckley warehouse is in the background.

"The Colorado and Southern four-wheeled caboose rests near Silver Plume depot in a very sad condition about ten years after the railroad was removed. 

A curiosity to note: where did the four crossties go?

Another curiosity: why is the emblem on the left side so large?  The C&S herald was not this size.  Earlier photos of 1006 show it regular sized.  And why is this herald blank?  Also, during this paint job it appears that the "1006" numbers were painted over.

Does this imply that there were some renovation attempts which made these changes?  To lend credence to the idea of some renovation, note how the caboose has been righted from it's pitched-forward state of the 1940s photo (if that photo is dated correctly).  In addition, the steps have been reattached.

The above page is from Georgetown and the Loop

The above photo is from Clear Creek Memories and Then Some by Tom and Denise Klinger.  The color of the caboose in these black and white photos appears very light compared to earlier and later photos of 1006.  However, the color seems very similar to another C&S caboose (1003 I think) in the photo below from the same book:

My hunch is that the display color was a darker red.  Later, someone repainted it to the correct, operation-era color (and possibly created the abnormally sized herald), and then it was repainted again sometime to the 'caboose red' color that we see from the 1960s onward.

Harry Brunk's Up Clear Creek on the Narrow Gauge comments on page 142,
"Just what was the dark color that the C&S painted its cabooses?  It was Boxcar Red.  Thanks to some well-meaning volunteers we were all led down the 'Caboose Red path' in the mid-to-late 1950's.  'We all' included even the knowledgeable Colorado Railroad Museum, so none of us need to hide our faces in shame.  The Caboose Red paint on #1009 at the museum and on #1006 at Silver Plume is not correct for these cabooses while they were on active duty on the C&S. Sometime in the 1950's, a crew, probably under the auspices of the Burlington, (the parent company of the C&S) went through Colorado re-painting all of the worn paint jobs on the C&S equipment on display.  Using the then current paint and lettering standards of the Burlington and C&S, this crew gave new and inaccurate paint schemes to [all the display pieces including] caboose #1006.  Both of these cars were lettered accurately but the Caboose Red was standard on the C&S only after the narrow gauge stopped running."