The Locos We Lost, Part 1

I know I should be thankful that we have 5 very well-preserved locomotives of the C&S.  And I am!   Goodness, there are some railroads with no saved engines. 

But one can't help thinking of what might have been.  In my readings and research over the years I've noticed that there were a few other engines that came close to being saved, but for various reasons were lost.  The next few posts will explore these.

The first lost loco did not make it to the C&S era.  In fact, it was a Mason Bogie.  Yes, a Mason Bogie from the South Park was actually preserved!  Unfortunately, how it got saved is a complete mystery.  In fact, which locomotive it was is a mystery as well.

So, here's the story.

According to an article of his in the 1948 Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, Mac Poor, author of the renowned DSP&P book, was doing some research on locomotives and discovered that there was "an old bogie type engine" on display at Iowa State College since roughly 1905.  He found some info on the engine in a school publication listing the various railroads that had at one time owned this engine.  No mention of the South Park was found there. 

However, upon inspection it was found that "The drive wheel diameters, wheel base, firebox dimensions, gauge and valve gear coincides exactly with the specifications of Mason engines built for the South Park." 

The real giveaway came when the a "D.S.P" was found on the casting of the right hand cylinder.  In addition to this, "Cast in a front wheel truck are the words 'Denver Wheel G.W. Co. Denver, Colo. Jan. 14, 1896 U.P.D.&G.'"

So, what happened to it?  Alas, World War II happened.  According to The Pictorial Supplement to the DSP&P, which has a photo of the loco on display in a somewhat deteriorated condition, the engine was lost to the wartime scrap drive in 1942. 

The caption there reads "The last surviving example of a South Park Mason bogie stood for 37 years on the campus of Iowa State College....Many erroneous and confusing statements were made concerning the history of this locomotive, but there is no doubt that it was a South Park engine."

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Side note: Mac Poor's article was published in 1948, but he makes no mention of the engine being scrapped even though, if The Pictorial Supplement is correct, the locomotive was gone already for six years.

C&S Display Trains: Given or Pulled?

For a long time I have taken it for granted based on several references that when the C&S was in the process of abandoning their Clear Creek line in the early 1940s they offered a locomotive for display to any town along its line.  The story was that initially no one took them up on the offer until Central City changed its mind and then Idaho Springs followed suit.  Silver Plume came a little later after this with acquiring a caboose.

However, after reading Daniel W. Edward's most recent A Documentary History of the South Park Line: Vol. 6: Abandonment of the Leadville Line, I have come to the conclusion that this narrative is simplistic at best.

Edward's has a chapter devoted to letters sent between several individuals.  For simplicity's sake it is largely a correspondence between C&S officials and CB&Q officials.  Basically, it shows a tussle over the town of Central City's desire to acquire a display train for their town.  The C&S is supportive and requests permission from the Q who repeatedly tries to turn down the offer.  The Burlington folks keep putting off the C&S folks' request by stating that the C&S is headed toward bankruptcy and cannot afford to give away any of its assets, including locomotives destined for the scrapper.

This back and forth haggling goes on for roughly 7 months from August 1940 to March 1941 until the CB&Q finally relents and allows engine 71 and a combine to be loaned...not donated, loaned.  Somehow or other the gondola gets included, though the Q tried to get out of that too, and full ownership of the display train is eventually transferred to the Central City Opera Association.

So, what about No. 60 and coach 70 at Idaho Springs?  Wasn't that a benevolent donation from the railroad?  Nope.  The further I looked into that situation, I found out that the train was given to the town to the town to satisfy a claim by Idaho Springs that the C&S had not paid a tax debt.  Thus, the donation of the train settled that financial squabble.

The story of how caboose 1006 made it to Silver Plume is a bit murkier.  Based on some research you can see on a previous series of posts, the town seems to have pursued this and had to pick up the caboose themselves.

The story that the C&S offered display trains to towns along their route and happily obliged seems now incorrect.  However, I have a theory.  I surmise that the C&S did make a benevolent offer to the towns in 1938, but no one accepted the offer.  This idea is based on the book Narrow Gauge to Central and Silver Plume when it details a meeting that was held to determine the disposition of all the narrow gauge equipment as abandonment was progressing.  Besides No. 9 that was sent to the World's Fair, the Superintendant of Motive Power mentions in a memo that "one [engine was held] up anticipating that we could use the engine for historical purposes.  We now find that none of the towns are agreeable to accepting this engine."

It wasn't until 1940 that Central City, in anticipation of developing the historical nature of the town, came to the idea of acquiring a display train.  At this point, it seems the financial situation had worsened and management, at least of the parent CB&Q, was not feeling particularly benevolent.

In summary, the C&S made an offer of a display train to Clear Creek towns in 1938, but there were no takers.  The process of acquiring No. 71 and train for Central City began in 1940 and was initiated by the town (though credit goes to C&S management for pushing the Q to make it happen).  No. 60 and her coach were given to Idaho Springs as a means to pay a tax debt.  And, finally, Silver Plume, like Central City, seems to have pursued a caboose by their own initiative.

As you can see, I'm putting pieces together, so I'm very open to alternate explanations.  If you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear!



Photos
No. 71 and train
No. 60
1006: Otto Perry, 1941

C&S No.9 at Heritage Park

Just enjoyed this beautiful night shot of C&S No. 9 at Heritage Park in Breckenridge.  

http://breckheritage.com/rotary-snowplow-park/

Spark Arrestors outside the C&S

As Mac Poor pointed out in his 1948 article, the C&S was often hampered by the problem of causing fires along their rights-of-way and thus eventually created what many now call a "Beartrap Spark Arrestor."  This feature has become nearly synonymous with the Colorado & Southern narrow gauge being eventually applied to all their engines with the exception of No. 70 when it was converted to an oil burner.

In poking around for some info on this contraption I came across two curious sights on the internet.  The first is a photo of unknown origin (at least to me.  I forgot where I found it. Sorry!) showing what appears to be a logging railroad with a massive balloon stack version of a spark arrestor with not just one, but two tubes to drop the cinders along the right of way.

Curiously, it appears that the rail on the left side of the locomotive is not present!

Next, I found a photo of the D&RGW 346 wearing a Beartrap spark arrestor at the Colorado Railroad Museum in a 2015 photo.  No. 346 did wear one of these during the time that the C&S borrowed it in the 1930s, but I didn't know that it sometimes wore it at the museum.  Maybe those of you who are Colorado residents can let me know if this is a regular occurrence or not.

As I was writing this, I remembered that on a visit to the Durango and Silverton in the early 1990s, I saw one of their locomotives sporting one of these spark arrestors too.  I have a video of this, but need to locate it to post.

Before and After Baker's Tank

A before and after photo I found of the Baker's tank on the Boreas pass route from Then and Now, Images of Colorado and the West.  The original tank is on the left.  The tank on the right was its replacement, moved here, if I am correct, from the west portal area of the Alpine Tunnel after the route was abandoned in 1910.

Here is the caption Then and Now gave: 

Old Railroad Route, These two photos show the same spot from 2 different era's and 2 vastly different modes of transportation. This is the Bakers water tank on Boreas Pass. This road goes between Como in South Park on highway 285 and Breckenridge. It crosses the continental divide and follows the old rail bed of the Denver South Park and Pacific railroad. An old steam engine is shown at the tank in 1887 and a nice family with their Pickup posed in the same spot in 2014.

Happy Easter: Resurrection on the C&S narrow gauge

Today many Christ-followers all around the globe are celebrating that God came to earth out of love in the person of Jesus with a task in mind.  He came not on a war horse to conquer, but instead as a humble man who chose to die on a cross on what we now call Good Friday, and then to defeat the power of sin and death by being resurrected three days later.  

The C&S narrow gauge has experienced a number of resurrections itself over the years since it's final breath in August of 1943.  While The Resurrection holds much more significance, our collective enjoyment of even the resurrection of a railway points to something innate in our spirits that rejoices at something that once was lost but now has been found.

The first return to life was the short Central City Narrow Gauge Railroad that ran from 1968 to 1972.  The second was the reincarnation of the Georgetown Loop, particularly as the high bridge was completed by 1984.  The Central City route had a short revival from roughly 1987-1990 with a new operator.  The next resurrection was in 1988 when a Leadville couple bought the Leadville to Climax route for $10 from the Burlington Northern and founded The Leadville, Colorado & Southern.  

Today, however, another resurrection is in the works as The South Park Rail Society lays track (see photo) in

Como and is having a narrow gauge locomotive restored to run this year, the first locomotive to run there in nearly eight decades.

Below is an article from the March 2017 Rocky Mountain Railroad Club's Rail Report by Dave Schaaf and Chip:

The South Park Rail Society officially launched its funding page to raise funds that will help with the repair and transportation of its newly acquired locomotive for Como, Colorado. Depending on funding, the plan is to have the locomotive moved and steamed up in Como during Park County’s 22nd Annual Boreas Pass Railroad Day planned for August 19, 2017. If this event goes well, they are considering having the locomotive steamed up again two weeks later while the 37th National Narrow Gauge Convention is being held in nearby Denver.  The South Park Rail Society will be releasing more details as they develop.  Their web site is www.southparkrail.com.  [Their Facebook page mentioned on March 29th that "the goal is for this fall"].

Photo at left: kissing No. 4 goodbye as it leaves Silver Plume.

The South Park Rail Society locomotive is ex-Klondike Mines Railway #4, a Baldwin Locomotive Works narrow gauge 2-6-2, built in 1912.  This engine was unique among its roster in having been manufactured for the Klondike Mines Railway (KMRy). Operating for a mere two seasons on the KMRy, #4 and its tender were purchased by the White Pass and Yukon Route in 1942 and was their WW II Skagway Yard switcher.  The locomotive moved to Wisconsin in 1955.  The locomotive was used on theme park railways in the lower 48 states, most recently at the Dry Gulch Railroad in Oklahoma, where it started a long restoration. In October 2015, KMRy #4 was moved to the Georgetown Loop Railroad at Silver Plume, Colorado.

The locomotive left Silver Plume, Colorado, on February 21, 2017, and was trucked to Cheyenne,

Wyoming, arriving at Wasatch Railroad Contractors, for service and repairs the next day.

Photo at right: No. 4 arrives in Cheyenne.

So many "Thank You!"s go out to all of you in Colorado who are making this resurrection possible, especially from us too far away to lend a hand.  We are so grateful!



All photos, except the Loop bridge, from The South Park Rail Society's Facebook page.

Funicular Railways along the C&S and what remains

I have been enjoying Tom and Denise Klinger's series of books about the C&S "and then some" immensely.  Recently I have been reading through their Clear Creek Memories edition and enjoyed learning about the several funicular railways that catered to tourists particularly from the C&S.  

One such railway was the Castle Rock Mountain (or sometimes named "Scenic") Railway that ascended to the top of South Table Mountain in Golden to the unique rock formation that gave the railway its name.  The funicular operated from 1913 to 1918 (although online dates vary, the Klingers write that everything was sold in 1919).  For many years this peak had a dance hall.  Curiously, this dance hall was used by the KKK for a period of time in the 1920s.  Eventually it burned down in 1927.  A photo of the burning structure can be seen in the Klingers' book. 

So, what remains of this funicular?  The abandoned roadbed is referred to as a scar and it is still recognizable according to sources I found online.  One site states that the site of the present Golden water tank was the railway's terminal and that "You can still see the scar left by the track, but it gets fainter every year."

One site said the "rail ties" were slid down the mountain, presumably for scrap, around 1930.  Another stated "It's rails were removed for use as scrap metal during WWI."

One very helpful site has a blog describing adventures in finding Colorado history.  The author of the site (who also makes handmade soaps!) traced the remains and found that "From the top of Castle Rock, we could see the scar left by the funicular, which appears as a straight line highlighted by recent snow."  In addition to remains of the dance hall at the top, they also found remains of other structures and unknown items along the roadbed which may or may not have been related to the railway.

Recent photos still show a very clear view of the former funicular's location, especially with a light dusting of snow.

References (in addition to the Klingers' book)

http://www.summitsoapstress.com/blog/2015/12/15/chasing-history-the-funicular-on-south-table-mountain
Old photos (except historical one are from the above blog post)

http://golden.com/wordpress/tag/lookout-mountain-funicular/ (Between the time that I first wrote this a few months ago and today, this site has disappeared)