C&S No. 9 from the view of BN employee

The story of C&S No. 9 including its survival and short lived restoration to operation is quite fascinating.  Many have told of their experience with the engine, most significantly Jason Midyette's excellent book One Short Season.  

C&S 9 at Keystone, SD June 1984 from Eddie's Railfan Page

 I came across the following from the viewpoint of a Burlington Northern employee (the former parent company of the C&S, descended from the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy).  The 2016 comment comes from the Railway Preservation News forum.  He, as many, has strong feelings about what occurred with No. 9.  Being only a far-away bystander myself, I make no claim to accuracy in the events that happened, and I don't claim that the criticisms below are correct or not.  Still, I found his viewpoint interesting because it comes from an interesting angle.

"To add my two centavos worth... in the late 1980s, employees of the BN diesel shop in Denver tried to work with the CHS to restore #9 and her trainset (after we had been unable to get a standard gauge engine), to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this equipment being used to represent the Burlington Lines at the Chicago Railroad Fair. At the time we still had employees who had worked on the Clear Creek Division. (Brother, we had a guy that started in COMO two months before it closed.) BN wanted to find a way to write off the small car shop that had once been used to maintain the narrow gauge passenger cars, which had a drop table, overhead crane, air compressor, press, lathe, mill, etc. and this would have allowed it. (As it turned out, this was torn down to avoid paying tax on it.) 

"The unions made exceptions for employees to volunteer their time, and our diesel shop foremen were in favor of putting the equipment on standard gauge flatcars, which we could spot inside the big shop when we had room for an extracurricular project. This would have allowed deck level access from the shop ramps. BN liked the idea, and was going to underwrite it.

"THIS WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR CHS. Instead they spent trainloads of tax money to screw up this project. I especially appreciate that nobody in this thread has placed blame on Marlin Uhrich because it didn't work out. He is a very gifted machinist and boilermaker, who tried to reason with CHS BOD unsuccessfully JUST LIKE BN DID 20 years before. Many people HAVE blamed him just because he tried to make the CHS's bull$%*# fly.

September 29, 2006-Silver Plume

"Not only is Marlin a bona fide genius, but he is an extremely nice fella, and he is known to and respected by almost everybody with steam oil in their blood around these parts. I saw the whole #9 thing happen, and am very fortunate to have Uhrich Locomotive Works assisting me with my personal locomotive restoration. They have my complete confidence. If I am not successful, it won't be Marlin's fault, you can be absolutely positive on that !!!"

There are lots of heavy words in there towards the CHS.  Again, I'm mostly interested in the workings of the BN around the loco, not in casting blame.  

To quote one of the moderators over at Railway Preservation News, "As your moderator, even as I feed the flames, we need to be careful of this discussion… it can too easily devolve into blame and name calling… The Loop is a wonderful historic site, and a great tourist train… and can get better… I also note that History Colorado funds a large number of Colorado history projects... support that isn't common outside of Colorado."

West Portal of Alpine Tunnel by drone

When my family visited the Alpine Tunnel this summer, I rented a drone hoping to get great aerial footage of the west and east portals.  I ran out of time on the west side and, due to my inexperience with drones, was too afraid to fly too high on the east (You can see that footage here).

Lo and behold, I found someone who did what I wanted to do at west portal.  He flies his drone super high!  It's so high that at one point you can even see the eastern approach.  It is stunning footage.  I don't know who David Moore is.  This video simply came up in a Facebook search for the Alpine Tunnel.  I wish his video was on Youtube, but I could only find it here on Facebook.

Below are some screenshots from his video:

Here is the right-of-way looking west (west portal out of sight to the bottom of the photo) with the turntable to the right.

Here is the cut leading to the west portal, indicated by the large round gash in the mountainside.  The construction trail over the pass can be seen to the right.

Another shot looking west.  Alpine Tunnel station complex is in the center of the photo with the remains of the engine house to the left of the grade and the telegraph office to the right.

Even higher than the previous photo, the grade can be seen veering to the left to head west.

Tunnel Lake can be seen just a little above the center of the photo. 

The west portal and the turntable.

Moore flew his drone high enough over the pass that one can see the grade on the east side.  It can be seen just to the right of and below the clump of trees in the center left of the photo.  This is near Atlantic siding.  The east portal, if I'm correct, would be behind the trees in the left of the photo.