I found a site with a handful of nice C&S photos from Bill Raia's collection. There is a series of shots of C&S 71 pulling a train largely made up of gondolas through Clear Creek canyon in 1939. There is another of a wrecked engine, likely from Boreas Pass. There are also some excellent shots of former C&S No. 74 during its tenure on the Rio Grande Southern. Photos are available for purchase at Raia's SmugMug page.
I came across this video below with a tour of C&S No. 9 and Boreas Pass Road and found it interesting. The narrator is off on some details and railroad terminology, but I think you'll enjoy his delight at experiencing the wonders of the line over the pass. The fall colors are also stunning.
Happy Fall!
In an exciting announcement CPR News published the article "After years of repairs and careful restoration, historic Alpine Tunnel Road reopens near Pitkin." The article lauds the multi-year work done to repair the rock wall damaged in 2016 by an avalanche. The damage closed the road for vehicles to the Alpine Tunnel station complex and the west portal for roughly eight years. During that time, vehicles needed to be parked just a little upgrade of Sherrod Loop. Finally, as the article states, "After years of repairs, a historic road deep in the Rocky Mountains has finally reopened — just in time for fall."
But the news is a bit tempered. If you read to the end, you come across this sentence: "There still is one hiccup when visiting the historic district: a large boulder that’s a little less than a mile from the historic tunnel. Visitors can park at the intersection of the Alpine Tunnel Road and Williams Road, and walk the rest of the way."
What???
There is no other info on the boulder and the circumstance surrounding it. But, essentially, you can at least drive over the old South Park grade eastbound past the former parking spot above Sherrod and, presumably, past the rock wall, but not much farther.
...sigh
Trains that traveled east toward the Alpine Tunnel left Gunnison and reached Parlin roughly 11 miles later. A few landmarks still exist to help one identify the former DSP&P/C&S grade through the small town. In this video I visited the site of Parlin and point out the location of the right-of-way and the wye. At the end we travel on today's CR-76 which is on the old right-of-way. Toward the end I point out where the ROW leaves the road.
In June 1941, just over three decades after the abandonment of the Alpine Tunnel, Railroad Magazine published an article titled "The Alpine Tunnel Route." The author, Lewis R. Lathrop, was a D&RG fireman who knew South Park trainmen who ran trains over the "hill" through the famous tunnel and swapped stories with them in a cigar store. In fact, he started work with the Rio Grande just two years after the arrival of the DSP&P into Gunnison.
There are some epic stories in here including one in which a crew of trainmen and snow shovelers managed to turn an engine around with hydraulic jacks. I admit, I still don't understand how they did it. Essentially, a snow blockade kept them from getting through the east portal of Alpine Tunnel, but snow had drifted back behind them. They decided they had a better chance at plowing through the line westward back to Pitkin, but...they needed to turn an engine around with a plow on the front.
While discussing some epic snowbucking skills the South Park railroaders possessed, Lathrop, the D&RG man, admitted that the DSP&P had superior equipment to theirs and that the DSP&P railroaders were better skilled at fighting snow. As evidence he tells of a blockade of Marshall Pass where two South Park "hoggers" opened the Rio Grande line themselves.
Lewis A. Lathrop actually, as the article puts it, "crossed the great divide" a few months before publication of this article. His son Gilbert assisted with its completion.
*A few notes: the story of a stalled circus train being pushed by elephants on the Alpine Tunnel route is likely legend.
Also, the article concludes by stating the rails over the pass were pulled in 1917. They were actually pulled in 1923 and 1924.
In the December 1943 edition of Railroad Magazine the publication reported the sad occasion of the final Colorado & Southern Railway narrow gauge run. Many of us are familiar with the well-publicized event (Even Life Magazine photographed it). I thought it was interesting to see an article from the time period itself. As the author wrote, on August 25th, 1943 the South Park Line had at last "Gone to Glory."
In the June 1939 issue of Railroad Magazine a Burlington employee from South Dakota wrote an article describing a sad but historic ride he took on the Clear Creek Line. M.L. Hart saw a notice that the Colorado & Southern was going to abandon its narrow gauge line west of Idaho Springs including the Georgetown Loop. He asked and received permission to ride what he called the "Graveyard Run" on January 30th, 1939.
Along the way, riding in the caboose and later a gondola of gravel, he chats with conductor Billy Maas who later pushes a caboose with his bare hands, interacts with famed railroad photographer Richard Kindig, watches the switching at Forks Creek, witnesses construction of Highway 6 in the canyon, and hears the annoyance of a workman in Empire complaining about the railroad's choice to cut the line farther east. Lastly, he takes a trip by car up to Georgetown just two months before the tracks will be torn up.
