Thursday, December 24, 2020

Frozen toes and mangers-Merry Christmas 2020

Girl on tracks near St. Elmo
I love to imagine what it would have been like to live in the time when the C&S narrow gauge was alive and kicking, especially the winter time.  


For me, it's fun to imagine living out stories like those of Charlotte Marrifield, who lived in St. Elmo.  "We very often skied down the hill to go to school.  We had to jump the railroad tracks and we would land in very deep snow.  The trainmen shoveled off the tracks in to twelve or fifteen foot piles on either side of the rails.  One morning my younger brother, when making the jump, landed on the other side of the tracks, upside down buried in the snow.  All I could see were his skis sticking up out of the snow!"

Other times, though, I think of the terrible challenge of running trains in that awful weather.  

Charles C. Squires remembers, "One bitter cold morning with the thermometer indicating 38 degrees

bucking snow above Tunnel Gulch
below zero, we were called to leave Gunnison at 3am.....At Woodstock Tank [,While working on a problem on the last car, my partner] sat down on the edge of the car with his feet hanging over the side of the car.  I told him had had better get up and keep moving about to keep the blood in circulation....After we had set out our train at Hancock and returned to Alpine Tunnel, we all went into the depot for orders and were hovering around the stove when my partner discovered that his feet were frosted and pained him so much that he cried like a baby....We were on the road 82 hours continuous time."

Then I think...nope!, I like learning about life back then from afar!  I'll pass on the frozen toes and long work hours!  

One thing I love about the story of Christmas is that God didn't just look at human life from afar, observing the joys and painful aspects like me looking at my train books.  Instead He incarnated Himself inside human life, even in the most humiliating start as a weak, helpless baby.  

I like how the New Testament book of Hebrews puts it: 


Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.

It’s obvious, of course, that he didn’t go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham. That’s why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins, he would have already experienced it all himself—all the pain, all the testing—and would be able to help where help was needed. (Hebrews 2:14-18)

Merry Christmas.

-Kurt


Sources:

Memories of St. Elmo by Charlotte Merrifield with Suzy Kelly

Historic Alpine Tunnel by Dow Helmers

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

C&S Coach 70 takes a trip to Silver Plume!

Photo Corinne Westeman 
 C&S coach 70 made her last trip west from Golden to Idaho Springs in 1941 coupled to engine 60.  The two were pulled by Rube Morris, the scrapper, using engine 69 for power.  By this time the Idaho Springs to Silver Plume stretch of the Clear Creek line had been torn up roughly three years earlier.  Coach 70 and her locomotive were put on display in town and the remaining tracks were subsequently torn up all the way to Golden.  Despite a few moves within Idaho Springs coach 70 and engine 60 have been outside on exhibition for nearly 80 years.  

But just a little over a week ago, coach 70 finally reached the end of the Clear Creek line, arriving in


Photo Corinne Westeman
Silver Plume on December 8th, 2020.  This time, unlike her life in revenue passenger service, she didn't travel over the Georgetown Loop; she was pulled by tractor trailer up the mountainside on I-70.  

Her hometown, Idaho Springs, paid $15,000 to move her to Historic Rail Adventure's workshop adjacent to the Georgetown Loop railroad facilities in Silver Plume where the coach will be inspected this winter to see what it would take to restore the car.  Once Historic Rail Adventure has an estimate, Idaho Springs will then determine the next steps.

On a curious note, while C&S engine 60 is sitting solo for the first time in almost 80 years, coach 70 is reunited in Silver Plume with the only other fully intact C&S coach known to still be in existence, C&S 76.  

According to Bob Bowland, former Idaho Springs mayor, the end goal of the restoration, if it occurs, is to bring the coach back to No. 60 in Idaho Springs and build a shelter over the display train to protect it far into the future.  

More details can be found here from an article in the Canyon Courier.  Note: The article claims the engine and coach were "gifted to the county by the railway."  In actuality, the county pressured the C&S into giving them the train.  The C&S owed the county a good deal of back taxes.  The county offered to drop the case to pursue the missing tax money if the railroad would give them a display train.  This was no small ask considering that nearby Central City had to fight the reluctant railroad executives quite a bit to finally get a display train for their town the previous year.

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Como roundhouse 1981 "reaching the point of no return"

For anyone who has seen the startling restorations in Como in the last few years, it is good to remember just how far things have come.  

In perusing old copies of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club's Rocky Mountain Rail Report newsletters, I came across the following from one year shy of four decades ago.

June 1981 

IF YOUR TRAVEL PLANS INCLUDE ANY EXPEDITIONS across Colorado in the future, and you are motoring through South Park on 285 around eating time, stopping to vanquish hunger pains at the Como Depot [sic - the hotel] at Como may be worthy of consideration. We don't "own any stock" in the restaurant, but Jo and Keith Hodges deserve credit and mention for providing a useful function for the building by the operation of their restaurant, which also results in the preservation of the historic railroad hotel. The food is good, and reasonably priced. (A recent visit reaffirmed a previous observation that the prime rib is "tops".) Hours are 6:30 AM to 9:00 PM (until 8:00 PM on Sundays). They are closed on Tuesdays.

The Como roundhouse sits nearby, of course, looking more forlorn everyday. The building and grounds are for sale for a reported $50,000, a sum hardly attainable by any group desiring to acquire the building for preservation, particularly when con­sidering the cost of needed repair. It is sad to see such a memorable part of our state's railroad history reaching the point of no return. Ideas, anyone? Oh yes, the name of the company handling the property is Leach Realty.

Below are some photos of photos of the roundhouse in the 1980s.   These shots were in the roundhouse office when I visited in 2018.









Sunday, November 29, 2020

C&S Tales: retrieving rail in 1948

I came across a February 1991 Rocky Mountain Rail Report where Irv August told the story of a trip he took with two friends to the west portal of Alpine Tunnel to retrieve a piece of rail to help in the promotion of M.C. Poor's DSP&P book.  It seemed a fun idea to make a little "audiobook" of the story and include related photos (some from August's trip, some from elsewhere).  I don't claim any skill at voice work, but it was fun nonetheless.  Here is the video. 

As a fun addition, I took a video of C&S 9 under steam in 2006 and edited it over a few photos at the Alpine Tunnel station complex at the beginning and end of the video.  It's hardly professionally done, but I enjoyed seeing what it might have been like to have a video camera at work back at the beginning of the twentieth century


  



Enjoy,

Kurt

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Mysteries of Alpine - Part 6: The last train through Alpine Tunnel? 110 year anniversary

 110 years ago on this day, November 10, 1910, the last train went through the historic Alpine Tunnel...or was there another?  I explored this questionable date in the below article previously found in The Bogies & the Loop. 

Mysteries of Alpine - part 6

On the afternoon of August 16th, 1977, Elvis Presley was found dead in his Memphis home. Or was he? A long-standing mystery suggests that the King of Rock and Roll may have faked his death and has been sighted numerous times since that fateful day. 

The King of South Park Lore, the route of the Alpine Tunnel, also has a curious ending. To be sure, the bell tolled for the majestic route over "the hill" late in 1910. But unlike the final scheduled narrow gauge movement on the C&S in Leadville on August 23rd, 1943, the date of the funeral train on the Gunnison division lacks an equivalent Time magazine-covered event.

November 10th, 1910 is the most common date given for the last run through the bore. It is based on Dow Helmer's interview with a South Park fireman named Zed Scott. Recorded in Helmer's 1963 Historic Alpine Tunnel book, Scott claims decisively, "I remember distinctly, the last train through Alpine Tunnel. The date was November 10, 1910....it was a mixed train, eastbound for Como."

Scott's definitive claim flies in the face, however, of C&S company announcements. On approximately October 10th, one month prior to Scott's date, a minor cave-in occurred in the tunnel. Mac Poor in his iconic DSP&P book states that, "the management inferred that the damage was beyond repair." On October 14th a Gunnison newspaper reported to "have positive information that the C.&S. has decided to close the railroad to Denver for the winter, perhaps permanently" and by October 24th the railroad's management "announced that all through service to Gunnison would be discontinued."

While most agree that the cave-in was simply a good excuse to justify killing the expensive line, few deny that it occurred in actuality. (See note at bottom for a correction on this) If Scott is right, though, they must have cleaned it up enough to continue running trains. Yet, if the management was using the cave-in as a motive for abandonment, why would they clean it up?  Apparently, that cave-in was not "beyond repair." 

One way or another trains kept running into November 1910. The Gunnison News Champion commented on November 4th that the railroad "still runs a train every other day but probably will stop that shortly." Could the 10th, then, have been that final funeral train? 

One source suggests that it was not. A. A. Brownie Anderson, a C&S trainman, kept meticulous notes on his C&S trips, recording in his time book nearly every train he worked on. He fired several trains over Altman Pass, the last of which were recorded as November 12th & 13th, 1910 with engine 55. Both of these dates exceed Zed Scott's "distinct" conviction that the 10th was the final run.

I have several theories concerning the inconsistencies between our principal defendants. First, it is clear that the management's statements were conjecture. Plus, they had a motive: to bury this money-drain of a line. Plus, at least two separate trainmen without a motive mention runs in November.

Zed Scott is closer to the truth, but we have reason to question his accuracy. He was speaking on memory roughly fifty years after the event in question. On the other hand, he may have been on the last scheduled run. Maybe Anderson's trains were specials as the line wrapped up for the winter. This year, as so many others, they probably figured the line would open again in the spring.

A. A. Brownie Anderson's dates, then, are the most accurate we have. He does not have a motive, and he recorded the dates on their actual occurrence. Was then, the last run through the tunnel on November 13th, 1910? It was Anderson's final run through the bore, for sure, but we may never know how many or if any followed after that day.

To those whose coffers the tunnel was draining, the line's death could not have come soon enough, but for those of us who love this route lined with ghostly debris like the city of Rome, it was laid in its grave all too soon. Still, the grand mysteries draw us ever more to it, because our spirits long to know the details of the final stand of this mighty hero who stared Mother Nature in the face for so many years. While we may never know the exact date that it was finally brought low, in its short life, this line, like its name, Alpine, rose to great heights that still inspire us today.

UPDATE: 

So now I have to discredit my own article. I wrote it a few years ago before I had access to Daniel W. Edwards' Documentary History of the South Park series. Having just checked that book now, I found more facts. In Daniel W. Edwards' Vol. 1, he quotes from a Nov. 20, 1910 letter from the James D. Welsh, C&S General Superintendent, where Welsh wrote, "This leaves our Gunnison district west of Hancock so it can be closed as soon as we are able to move 48 coal and one box car to that territory." Daniel W. Edwards, the editor, then inserts a comment "This suggests that several freight trains hauling empty coal cars to Gunnison passed through Alpine Tunnel after November 20 and that probably the last engines, running light or going east-bound with a few cars, had gone through Alpine Tunnel by December 1."

Note on the cave-in:

It has come to my attention that there is good reason to believe that the cave-in may never have actually occurred, or was so minor that it was easily patched up.  The fact that quite a few trains traveled through the tunnel afterwards is one case against its existence.  Daniel Edwards (mentioned in the update above) also wrote, ""the so-called flood in Trout Creek Canon in the summer of 1910 was used later as a reason to justify why the South Park abandoned that stretch of line, just as the 'cave in' at Alpine Tunnel was cited for abandonment of the line from Hancock to Quartz."


Saturday, November 7, 2020

C&S Button Herald Graces a Diesel in 2020!

Many who love the C&S also love its iconic button herald logo so proudly displayed on equipment such as C&S caboose 1006 in Silver Plume.  It recently made a comeback in memory of the Colorado & Southern Railway.

In August 2020, Burlington Northern Santa Fe celebrated its 25th anniversary by revealing in Kansas City the first ten locomotives painted with its predecessors' logos.  The General Electric ES44AC engines carried logos from Frisco, Great Northern, Burlington Northern, Santa Fe, Spokane Portland & Seattle, and, most importantly in my humble opinion :), the Colorado & Southern.  

Twenty-five years ago in 1995, BNSF came into being in the fall month of September. 

http://railfan.com/bnsf-railway-unveils-25th-anniversary-locomotives/

Could this possibly be the first revenue diesel locomotive to carry the C&S button herald logo?

http://railfan.com/bnsf-railway-unveils-25th-anniversary-locomotives/ 


David Hawkins photo: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/748182/ 


Tuesday, October 20, 2020

C&S Coach 70 to be restored!

I just received word from Bob Bowland, longtime Idaho Springs resident, of the following very exciting news: 

C&S coach 70 "will be transported to the Georgetown Loop shops for a full restoration about the end of this month [October] when the Loop operations close down. The loop will be able to retain some staff using pandemic employment funds.  The City[of Idaho Springs] is obligated, among other things, to construct a train shed over the whole train. Seems about as win-win as most deals get."

Unfortunately, I don't have any other details, but if anyone else knows more, please share.  This is great news!





                            

       

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Video of the St. Elmo boxcars

 Like many other visitors to the eastern approach of the South Park's route to Alpine Tunnel, I've always been intrigued by the two old C&S boxcars/outfit cars resting above the town of St. Elmo.  Here is a short video showing how they looked 110 years after they were put in place (1908-2018).


History Colorado wrote the following regarding the two cars:
The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad, along with its successors the Denver, Leadville & Gunnison and the Colorado & Southern, faced heavy operating costs, particularly on the Alpine Tunnel District portion of its route.

The reuse of railroad cars as stationery structures provided quick and inexpensive shelter for equipment storage, crew bunkhouses, and even the occasional depot.  The Colorado & Southern used the two former box cars on the site for crew quarters and storage from 1908 until 1922.

Friday, October 16, 2020

C&S 9 video - 2010 arrival at Breckenridge

Close to a decade ago, C&S 9 arrived at her new home on the old Right-of-Way in Breckenridge.  Four years previously she had a short revival to life pulling trains on the Georgetown Loop.  After that she was cosmetically restored and eventually reunited with her tender (at GLRR she operated with C&S 74's tender).  Here is a video of her "final" (one can never know for sure!) move to her present resting place at Rotary Snowplow Park.

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Finally, some hope for the Palisades

 So delighted to hear there is some movement on repairing the damage to the rock wall at the Palisades on the way to the west portal of Alpine Tunnel.  If you haven't seen this before, I know the call for letters is past due, but I'm sure they would still welcome a collection of letters as the process to get funding goes forward.





Below is a letter by Chuck Severance detailing what is being done and a way you can help.

There is a concerted effort underway across numerous interested parties to procure funding to repair the Palisades damage from 2016. This effort is being led by Chuck Severance here in Colorado in conjunction with Gunnison National Forest personnel. He is asking for all groups or individuals with any interest in seeing the Palisades repaired to please help out by considering writing a letter in support of the project. These instructions are geared towards groups but individuals are very welcome to write also. The more the merrier! Please see Chuck's call to action below:

Today I am hoping to enlist your help to write a letter of support that we discussed a few months back for the repair of the historic Palisade Wall of the Alpine Tunnel near Pitkin. Here is a short drone video of the wall. 

Progress on this project has been slow but steady for over a year now. We are currently awaiting approved final NFS engineering plans and bids from the contractors, but our concept budget is around $350-$450,000. On a positive note, The National Forest Foundation (NFF) has agreed to be the applicant for all grants. The NFF has the experience and advantage in grant writing, contracting, administration, and insurance. On the downside, History Colorado recently announced they will not be accepting grant applications exceeding $50,000 as a result of their revenue shortfall due to the closing of casinos for COVID.

Despite this setback, our working group of NFF and Gunnison National Forest (GNF) are pushing ahead. It is hoped that even a $50,00 grant will be valued as seed money to fuel other groups to contribute as well. The best news yet, The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) proposed by Senator Gardner and signed by President Trump 8/4/20 provides $2 Billion per year to National Parks and Forests for deferred maintenance – half of which is targeted for roads. As the details of the GAO Act gets clarified, GNF has committed to submitting the Palisade Wall as a shovel ready project. The GNF leaders are now hopeful to join this project not only with engineering and project management, but significant funding as well.

To be proactive in anticipation of GAO Act funding and project approval, we are proceeding with several grant applications. Our first grant application to History Colorado is due September 1st as a draft version and October 1st as a final version. Support letters are critical to each application, as we have discussed. We hope to show a diverse group of users and stakeholders including historic preservation, motorized recreation, and economic impacts.

I am asking that you please include the following in your support letter:

Your name and address on your letterhead, if available.

A description or mission statement of your group.

Number of members.

How you contribute to history, economics, or recreation in Colorado.

Why you think it is important to have the Palisade Wall repaired.

Please sign your support letter.

Letters should be dated and addressed to (but not sent to):

Mr. Tim Stroh, AIA

Director, State Historical Fund

1200 Broadway

Denver, CO 80203

Please scan or save your letters as a .pdf file and e-mail to me at chuck@crsarchitect.com. I hope to receive your support letter by mid September. Please save your letters, as I may ask for the letters to be refreshed with new dates for future applications. Please feel free to call or e-mail me with any questions or comments. I am trying to be brief here, but I have much more to share if you are interested.

Thank you so much for your interest and support in this historic and trail preservation project.

Sincerely yours,

Chuck Severance

Thursday, September 24, 2020

C&S boxcar 8179 comes to Como!

On the morning of September 24th, 2020, a C&S boxcar finally came home!  She arrived in Como.  Here is the writeup written by Jason Midyette: 

"Como received a new boxcar this morning.

"Colorado & Southern 8179 was a "Miller Car" that went to the RGS in 1938 and stayed on to the end of operations. The RGS made the car into an outfit car and used it until the end, when it was scrapped. The carbody ended up in Olathe, where it spent nearly 70 years as a shed. The car was acquired by the South Park Rail Society last year. We moved it from Olathe yesterday and unloaded it in Como this morning."

Jason Midyette photo

To see more photos, check out this thread on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum.


Sunday, August 30, 2020

Hear the man who piloted the last rotary through Alpine Tunnel

 I came across an amazing gem via the Colorado Railroad Museum website.  

On April 21, 1958, Mac Poor, famed author of DSP&P and co-author of the Pictorial Supplement to the DSP&P, recorded the audio of an interview between himself and George Champion, the man who piloted the final rotary snowplow through Alpine Tunnel.  This journey occurred between December 31, 1909 and January 4, 1910.

It is stunning to hear from a man who was there along with hearing Poor's voice as the two record this historical memory for posterity.

Enjoy!


Wednesday, July 29, 2020

East Portal of Alpine Tunnel & Romley Bridge 1992 video

In 1992 my parents took me and my brother to the east portal of Alpine Tunnel for the first time.

We lugged our Panasonic VHS-C camcorder up to the tunnel entrance and I took some video of the tip of the portal's redwood frame.  One could still see into the top a short bit, though most was filled with rockfall.  Sadly, this is now forever lost from view as the remains of the face of east portal collapsed some time later.

The second portion of the video shows the rail facilities outside of the west portal as seen from the top of Altman/Alpine Pass.  This is before restoration work laid track at various spots once again.  It is also before the removal of the snowshed timbers leading to the west portal and before restoration work to the turntable walkway.

The final portion of the video shows us driving our rental car over the former South Park railroad bridge at Romley several miles below the townsite of Hancock, east of the tunnel.  At a later date the road was diverted around the bridge, as it is today, so you can no longer drive over it.

Monday, July 20, 2020

50th Anniversary of the last South Park trains with Bob Richardson

I just purchased Bob Richardson's autobiography, Chasing Trains.  Richardson, who co-founded the Colorado Railroad Museum, has a number of C&S tidbits that I didn't know about.  Below is one of them.

The modelers at Boulder, Colorado, who maintained Engine 74 in the city park there, loaned us the so-called "bear-trap" cinder catcher they had built from Colorado & Southern patterns for that 2-8-0.  
Photo Source: Heritage Rail Alliance



So, in April of 1987, on the occasion of the final-runs anniversary on the South Park line, we operated No. 346 with our single ex-C&S stock car and the little four-wheel C&S way-car (caboose).  
Author's photo: 1991

It made an unusual and authentic 50th anniversary train, for in 1937, Engine 346 had been on loan to the C&S, and she handled the last livestock train on the South Park--into Jefferson.  The engine has a steel cab instead of the original wooden one, a result of a wreck on the C&S at Kenosha Pass in 1936.  

After the last stock train in 1937, there was a mix-up, and the crew put No. 346 into the Como roundhouse and dumped the fire.  Then, the crew got an automobile ride back to Denver.  The men were supposed to have run the 2-8-0 back to Denver, so the engine could be loaded onto a flatcar and sent back to the D&RGW.  As a result, a crew had to be taken back to Como, where No. 346 was fired up, and the men ran the engine light to Denver.

Friday, June 5, 2020

Rocky Mountain Railroad Club to ride the Loop in 1938...almost

While I've long heard of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club (RMRRC), I largely associated it with excursions on the Rio Grande Southern and the Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge in their twilight years.

In research that I've been doing about the C&S narrow gauge in the post-abandonment years I am surprised just how much the RMRRC has come up and how important a role it played in saving or recording parts of the C&S in many cases, not the least of which was their support to help Mac Poor publish his Denver, South Park & Pacific book when the previous rail society who had planned to publish it refused to do so without massive cuts.

In the process of tracking down more details about the history of the RMRRC, I contacted them via their website.  A member responded and recommended that I get a copy of Journeys to Yesteryear by David C. Goss that chronicles the group's activities from 1938 to 2003.  It is a delightful book especially as it describes every excursion from the group's start to 2003 when the book was written.

A curious C&S-related detail popped up in the very first page of the major Club events.  Quoting from the March 1938 issue of Railroad Magazine Carl Hewett wrote "I want to hear from persons interested in forming a rail fan group in Colorado, especially around Denver.  Also, I'd like to organize a narrow gauge fan trip over the famous Georgetown Loop."


On March 30th of that year, the Club had its first meeting "in the basement of the Union Pacific Freight House with approximately 20 charter members present."

In the course of research for the book the author came upon a short letter with no date, but likely 1938, and possibly written by Carl Hewett, when he mentions two trips the group planned to take that year.  The first was to Cheyenne where they hoped to visit the Union Pacific facilities, but this trip never occurred.  The second planned trip was to the Georgetown Loop.

The C&S was already in the midst of abandonment procedures for the line from Idaho Springs to Silver Plume at the time.  The ICC had given permission to junk the line starting May 30, 1937, but due to upheaval from those protesting the C&S plan, the case reopened and the date was pushed back to January 31, 1938.  More back and forth went on and the date was moved to December 31, 1938.  Then, the date was again changed and all was to be revisited on January 31, 1939.  This final date secured permission to abandon and the track was taken up a few months later.

In the midst of all this, the Club had a short window to ride the Loop.  However, in the end, Goss writes, "This trip was not operated either and the Colorado & Southern abandoned this route less than a year later removing the rails."  When one thinks of the iconic images and videos taken of other RMRRC excursions on dying narrow gauge routes like the Rio Grande Southern and the D&RGW, it's sad to think the Club came so close to capturing similar final moments of the Loop just before she was lost.

Sources:

Mac Poor's Denver, South Park & Pacific, 1976 Memorial Edition pg. 404
Daniel W. Edward's A Documentary History of the South Park Line: Vol. 8, pp. 250-252
David C. Goss' Journeys to Yesteryear, 2005, p. 11

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Alpine Tunnel Station and Boarding House Video

I put together a video with a focus on the telegraph office/station and two-story boarding house at the West Portal of Alpine Tunnel.  The video shows the changes over the years from operation to abandonment and decay to restoration.

I also show the inside of the present restored telegraph office.

My footage comes from our 2018 trip to the tunnel.  We rented ATVs, but due to the closure of the right-of-way just past Sherrod Loop we had to walk to the station complex.  We headed up grade for quite a while.  At one point, though, because we had a time limit on our ATV rental, I figured there was no way we could all reach the tunnel in time.  I decided to turn around, but my 10 year old egged me on to have the two of us give it a try.  So we left the rest of the family a little past the Palisades and hustled in the thin mountain air.  We never made it to the tunnel itself, but did get to the station area.  I'm thankful for my adventurous daughter who pushed me on!

Enjoy!
Kurt




Friday, April 10, 2020

Alpine Tunnel and Alpine Pass by Drone

When I posted a video of the Alpine Tunnel engine house I included some drone footage filmed by David Moore who graciously allowed me to use the remaining footage that he had not already posted.  Many enjoyed the footage and at least one person asked if Dave had flown his drone over the pass from West Portal to East Portal.  Indeed he had.

This video includes the footage from that segment.  I included a few titles to designate important points of interest (such as the summit of the pass, Mount Poor, and various railroad remains) and put a couple before and after shots of the line during operation.

I can't get over the majesty of the area every time I look at Dave's footage.  I also can't get over the bravery (or foolishness-not sure!) of those who surveyed and built a railroad line over such treacherous terrain.

Enjoy!
Kurt

Sunday, April 5, 2020

C&S 74 video 1952 on the RGS

C&S 74 served many railroads.  It first ran on the Colorado & Northwestern which then became the Denver, Boulder and Western.  After the demise of this line out of Boulder, the C&S purchased her along with two other sisters and they became C&S 74, 75, and 76.

After the close of narrow gauge operations in 1943 she went to Morse Bros. Machinery.  Eventually the Rio Grande Southern purchased her in 1948.  She led two Rocky Mountain Railroad Club excursions, the last of which was in 1951, one year before the RGS shut down.

The video below includes lots of color footage and live audio of both the 1949 and 1951 excursions.  The second was the final excursion of passengers on the line.  Many will enjoy the footage of the Rio Grande Southern and interviews with the likes of such friends of the C&S as Richard Kindig, Robert Richardson, and Jack Thode, but if you want to cut to the C&S 74 part, go to 1:13:59.

It's truly a delight to hear former C&S 74 work hard in the Rocky Mountains at the tail end of her active career.




Sunday, March 22, 2020

Mysteries of Alpine-part 4, Tunnel entrances-sealed or blown up?

A common device used by mystery writers is the use of the red herring.  It’s a false trail that distracts the reader and the sleuth from the real evidence.
Interior of Alpine Tunnel-source unknown

As stubborn webs cling to old timbers of the Alpine Tunnel so do red herrings cling to the web called the internet.

Throughout the years, as I have snooped around various websites that reference the tunnel, odd comments arise like the following: “The tunnel caved in from years of erosion.”

Other sites state “the tunnel has been sealed off for safety reasons.”  Even Wikipedia, in its opening paragraph on the tunnel, refers to it as “sealed shut.”

It gets stranger from there as talk of explosives creep up.  According to one jeep club, the “tunnel was closed (the entrances blown up) years ago.”  Another site states, "The entrance to the Tunnel was sealed with dynamite many years ago.”

West Portal 1989-Author's Collection
Did the forest service do this?  They may have had reason to consider it.  There was a time when visitors inside the crumbling tunnel were common.  One visitor to the tunnel in the 1970s remarked that there were up to 25 people inside “including some biker types” when he ventured within.  There was enough concern that rumors spread that the county was going to clear out the debris leading to the west portal and install a gate to keep people out.  So, did they resort to blowing it up?

Thankfully, Ray Rossman set the record straight.  He commented, “There has not been any action using any explosives to seal the tunnel.  All the closure action has been that of mother nature and the slow decay of the granite.  The only action I have
authorized was placing a rather large boulder to prevent entry into the western portal.”

The real culprit in the end, then, is Mother Nature.  Unfortunately, she may be doing more damage than the supposed dynamite might have.

In a later correspondence he remarked, “I have been monitoring the west portal closely and we continue to slowly lose the battle there….During the winter of 2002/2003 it appears that a portion of the tunnel on the western side collapsed.  The natural repose of the tallas debris now goes straight back for about 20' right behind where the upper portion of the stone portal is located.  Very
disheartening.  For those lucky few to have seen the interior, I think they have glimpsed at a piece of history perhaps now gone from our view.”

Alas, the plot thickens, but at least the red herring-colored dynamite can be thrown back into the sea.

Author at East Portal 1991



Below are various websites with wacky statements about what "happened" to the tunnel:

Says west portal collapsed
Says west portal caved in
Covered by landslides:
Tunnel has been sealed
Tunnel has been sealed.
West sealed BECAUSE East Portal collapsed in 1992
Another.
Tunnel sealed by a cave in & plans to open part of tunnel
question about forest service blowing it up.
both sides blown up “tunnel was closed (the entrances blown up) years ago"



Sunday, March 8, 2020

Alpine Tunnel interior shot

I wish I had a little background on this photo, but I just happened on it somehow on a Facebook page belonging to Jack Sanderson.  It's a stunning post-abandonment shot of the interior of Alpine Tunnel looking toward what appears to be one of the cave-ins with the original South Park rails above water and looking ready to take on an eastbound train of Gunnison coal.


Sunday, March 1, 2020

51 Year Expedition of 3 C&S passenger cars - video

While C&S 9 has had a fascinating journey, the three C&S passenger cars inextricably tied to it have had an equally curious expedition.  This video explores the cars' lives from the end of the C&S narrow gauge, their travels to three other states*, and their return to Colorado.




*While the Silver Plume informational sign for Business Car 911 claims that it went to the 1939 New York World's Fair, no photo evidence of this has come to light as far as I know.

Other sources argue that it did not join 13 and 76 at the World's Fair, but did participate in the 1948-1949 Chicago Rail Fair.  The research on this site states: "Car #911 was almost scrapped in 1938, but the cost to cut it up would have been $30, while the cost to burn it and then cut up the remaining scrap would have been $20. The low price of scrap was all that saved it. It was stored in Denver for awhile, then sometime in the mid '40s was moved to the CB&Q shops in Aurora, Illinois, where it joined coach #76, RPO #13 and 2-6-0 #9, which had been exhibited at the New York World’s Fair in 1939."

Sunday, February 16, 2020

The Five Remaining C&S Locos - Update 7

Be sure to visit a more recent update such as this one.

As my reading and research continues I want to continually update this article from its original form as published in The Bogies and the Loop.  Updates are in bold and underlined.   Thanks to recent research and correspondence with others in the know, this update includes new details related to C&S 71 and C&S 60 

And Then There Were Five:

 The Stories of the Remaining Five C&S Locomotives 

By Kurt Maechner  

          On a cold winter morning in 1986 C&S 71 was hauled up onto a flatbed truck in Central City. The destination was the newly reconstructed portion of the Georgetown Loop route. The engine got away, but much to their surprise, when they tried to move the tender, they were met by a string of Central City residents barring its passage out of town. They gathered in protest like Greenpeace stopping a whaling ship. What is it about these little engines that pulled people out of bed to protect it? Why do we still haggle on internet groups about the fates of these relics of a bygone railroad? Perhaps they each say something about life, even about us. Maybe we can even learn from their stories.

         Five engines remain of the C&S from its roster of 69. Each has an intriguing story of how it outwitted the grim scrapper. These are their stories…and a little about what each says about life.


The Other 64 

    A vast majority of the C&S engines met the scrapper one way or another. 35 of the 69 were scrapped by the C&S itself. 29, though eventually scrapped, were sold or traded to various companies and lumber railroads including Morse Brothers, Hallack & Howard Lumber Company, Manistee & Luther R.R., Clarkson Saw Mill Company, B.G. Peters Salt & Lumber Company, Oak Grove & Georgetown R.R. Co., J.J. White Company, Ed Hines Lumber Company, and the Montrose Lumber Company. A few notable exchanges include C&S 55 that was sold to the Milwaukee Road and operated on their Bellevue & Cascade narrow gauge line. Number 64 was moved to Mexico to run for the Sosa & Garcia Company. Two engines (no. 69 & 70) went to the White Pass & Yukon Route in Alaska. Finally, two of the C&S’ last and largest engines, no. 75 and 76 were eventually purchased, and converted to standard gauge, by the Central Railway of Peru to be used for the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corp. There are several hearsay reports that one of the engines tumbled to the bottom of a canyon due to an unrecorded derailment. 

In 2017 I was contacted by Bob Whetham, author of In Search of the Narrow Gauge.  During
a trip to Peru in 1965 he stumbled upon what he and others believe to be the remains of either C&S 75 or 76 in a scrap yard in Huancayo.  He noted at the time that he "remember[ed] the canted cylinders which were very unusual."  His photo (right) shows the tender in the background and the boiler behind that tender (it is not the engine in the foreground). 

Mike Trent on the DSP&P forum commented, "I would state that I am quite certain, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this is #76's tender. I have spent quite a bit of time comparing this image to others of #76. This had a distinctive rivet pattern, and it seems to fit, right down to the bunker sides.  It seems likely that the boiler in the back is one of the two. The only other photo I have ever seen shows a boiler complete with piston valves with the steam dome cover removed in what appears to be a different location than this one. The boilers would be harder to distinguish....But I'm going to get on board that this is #76's tender."

Presumably, it was eventually scrapped completely at a later date.

     And then there were five.


71: All Roads Lead to Home  

       Do all roads really lead to Rome? In real life, all roads lead to home. In all its small positive and negative nuances, our home affects us more than any other influence in life. Whether we love it or have run from it, it must be reckoned with. One C&S loco was adopted by a town, and despite unsuccessful efforts to remove it, and successful efforts to abuse it, it remains affectionately at its adopted home.

       When the railroad finally received permission to abandon the South Park in 1937, the C&S, finding no buyers in 1938 for their surplus locomotives, began the process of scrapping them.  This began in 1938 with No. 5 and one month later consumed 65 and 58.  

     There was an attempt at saving at least one engine for posterity.  The railroad made an offer to any town along its line: A free narrow gauge locomotive to stuff and mount. This would have been engine 6.  Despite the number of people who protested the abandonment of the line, not a single town along its remaining rails took them up on the offer.  A memo to the Superintendent of Motive Power stated that "the scrapping of 6 narrow gauge engines, one of which we asked you to hold up anticipating that we could use the engine for historical purposes.  We now find that none of the towns is agreeable to accepting this engine.  You may therefore scrap engine 6."

     However, by 1941, one town (and eventually Idaho Springs), Central City, who had lost its railroad connection 10 years earlier, changed its mind and said yes, though it had to fight the management of the Burlington Route (now owner of the C&S) for many months to get it at this point.  By this time the Q didn't want to give away any assets, even if it was scrap value. Engine 71, that had the unfortunate privilege of being used on many scrapping operations on the line, was chosen. Along with gondola 4319 and combination car 20, it was taken to the end of track at Black Hawk in April of 1941. It was then hauled by truck and found a home on exhibit near the site of the Central City depot.

     There it would remain for a little over 45 years.


   She did receive some attention over the years.  During the 1950's or 1960's, the CB&Q sent someone along to spiff up the paint and, in the process, added the Burlington herald to the whole train.  A fence was also added to keep vandals out.  Rick Steele comments in the Narrow Gauge Forum that he scraped and repainted the engine and No. 20 back to the original C&S markings in 1970.

       Puffs of steam would return to the air in Central City, however, in 1968 as the Colorado Central Narrow Gauge tourist railroad laid track to Packard Gulch. They ran trains with two Central American locomotives. This group, along with the locos and rolling stock, eventually moved to take over operation of trains on the Georgetown Loop project in 1973. The Colorado Historical Society (CHS), who owned the track, had the idea of also taking 71 to Silver Plume to restore it and run it on the Loop. The engine was indeed taken to Silver Plume in 1986 which lead to much consternation in Central City. A town newspaper referred to the situation as the “Great Train Robbery.” When the CHS then tried to move the tender, this is when some city residents came out to stop it. Their town had requested the locomotive and they wanted to keep it. Following this incident, the engine was promptly returned home...sort of.

   For reasons I have yet to determine, around this time, instead of returning the engine to its display site in Central City, it was placed on display, along with the rest of its train, on a new stretch of rail in Black Hawk.  During the winter of 1987, a trucker by the name of Steve Clifford, who related his story in The Bogies and the Loop, happened to pass through Black Hawk when he noticed "a flimsy make-shift shed constructed over locomotive No. 71 and its tender."  This chance encounter led him to find out just what was going on (and also to him receiving a bid to transport the train on his truck back to Central City).

      

     Something was indeed going on.  Steam rose again from the bear trap stack of 71 from 1987 to 1990. Another organization stepped in to run the Central City line, this time named The Blackhawk and Central City Narrow Gauge Railroad, and No. 71 was their star. There is a lot of discussion on the efficacy of the running of the locomotive in these years. That being said, she did live again, if even for a brief moment of relived
history. The group certainly had big goals. A tourist guide from 1988 states the railroad as planning “to reach Blackhawk in the next five years.” This, unfortunately, was not to happen. The railroad folded and 71 sat again, still, with her gondola and combine until she was moved once again. 
  The Narrow Gauge Discussion forum states that at some point the land where the train had previously been displayed was sold, and so the train, minus the gondola, was transferred to the Couer d'Alene Mine on the opposite side of the valley in the early 1990s.  By 1996 a chain link fence had been erected around the engine .



Casinos came to the City of Central in 1991 and she was eventually placed high up with the combine on a display track by Grand Z Casino and Hotel. The gondola sits in a park near Eureka Street. There’s much consternation over her most recent appointment, but, let’s face it, she’s at least at home.


74: Being left behind may be a part of the plan 

     We are all prone to asking, “What might have happened if…” Regret and longing make us wonder if we had not been left behind by some person, job, or opportunity, would we have found what we really wanted? Then again, maybe being left behind was part of the plan, a far greater plan than our own. 74 may have wondered this as it sat lonely at Morse Bros. Machinery in 1948.

     World War II either saved or destroyed many an engine. Many of the unemployed locos were scrapped for the war effort. Others were used where needed. C&S 74 had the privilege of working with two sister engines on the last remaining narrow gauge portion of the railroad between Leadville and Climax. Molybdenum was a hot commodity in the war effort and Climax had a lot. So much, in fact, that they needed to standard gauge the line, which they did in 1943. Numbers 74, 75, and 76 were then placed on flatcars and shipped to Denver. They were sold to Morse Bros. Machinery and sat on their property for three years. That’s when a Peruvian railroad came looking for some narrow gauge motive power. They took 75 and 76. 74 was left behind to wallow away alone. Left behind.

     Two years later, though, another life awaited 74. In 1948, the Rio Grande Southern was wheezing out its last breaths. The Galloping Geese had bought it a few more years, but the light was fading. The Rocky Mountain Railroad Club knew their chance to see and ride the line was dwindling. They wanted to plan as many excursions as possible. When the club approached the RGS receiver about this, he remarked that it was too costly to lease a D&RGW engine to haul their trains. The Club countered by suggesting that they buy a locomotive. For whatever reason, they took the bait and purchased 74.

     One member of that railroad club was a man named Dr. John B. Schoolland. He was very interested in the Colorado & Northwestern Railroad which ran through his resident town of Boulder and discovered that 74 had started its career on that very railroad. Recognizing that the RGS was near its terminus, he set out to save the engine so it could be displayed in Boulder. The city’s community started various fundraisers that eventually ‘bought’ 74 and had her shipped via rail. 74 returned home in August of 1952 and was placed in Central Park along with a D&RGW coach and RGS caboose.

  The years were not kind as neglect and vandalism set in. Various community members and students worked to touch up the engine off and on. Unfortunately, the RGS caboose was destroyed via a student prank using dynamite and was replaced with a Rio Grande caboose. In 1979 the Boulder Model Railroad Club committed to taking care of the site. 

74 and her train were eventually moved a bit to a new curved track.  Mike Trent on the Rio Grande Southern Technical Page wrote, "In February 1982, the train was moved about 40 feet north of its original location to allow improvements to be made in the park and because the track under the train had deteriorated badly. Almost all ties under the engine were completely rotted away, and the weight of the locomotive had caused her to settle about three to four inches. The BMRC volunteers were called upon to help, and they did, in a big way. Rail was located and donated with the help of the Georgetown Loop Railroad and State Historical Society. The City of Boulder bought brand new ties, and the volunteers, along with some willing professional help, laid a curved section of track for the train's new home. Dr. Schoolland was present to help drive the 'Golden Spike.'"  For a few months after the move the engine was dressed up in C&S livery and even sported a fabricated Bear Trap stack before being returned to its original look as C&N #30.

In the early 2000s the Colorado Historical Society shipped it to a company to see if the engine could be restored for use on the Georgetown Loop Railroad. This was decided against, but 74 was cosmetically restored by the West Side Locomotive Company of Denver and returned to Boulder.  In 2012, she was leased to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden where she resides today.  Who could have guessed that being left behind in 1948 would have saved her for our enjoyment today?


9: Sometimes reinventing yourself opens new doors.  

     Most of us like to stay on the rails marked out for us. With change comes friction and we like to avoid it at all costs. But complacency can also destroy us. Some of us learn that to find life anew we must reinvent ourselves in some way: physically, occupationally, or spiritually. Sometimes that reinvention comes whether we like it or not. This is the story of little number 9, a mogul that has lived more lives than any other C&S engine.

     If ever there was controversy surrounding a C&S locomotive, number 9 takes the cake. Built by Cooke in 1884, the loco started out on the South Park Line. She had the honor of pulling the last scheduled passenger train from Denver to Leadville in 1937. She spent two more years on the Clear Creek line and South Platte branch, but an opportunity in 1939 put the engine out of the scrapper’s hand. From 1939 to 1940 New York hosted the World’s Fair. Many railroads sent representative trains. The Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy, which now owned the C&S, planned on sending one of their Cooke moguls as a narrow gauge representative.  Engines 5, 6, 8, or 9 were the options.  They settled on No. 6, leaving the others to be scrapped.  However, according to Narrow Gauge to Central and Silver Plume, "the suggestion was made that the 9 was in better shape and might well be used instead--which was in fact done."

   According to The Mineral Belt Vol. 2, "C&S 2-6-0 Number 9, Railway express and RPO car 13, and coach 76 were put on exhibit in Denver before being moved to the New York World's Fair in 1939.  Number 9 had just been run through the backshop and coaches were resplendent in new paint.  The 2-6-0 was the only engine of this wheel arrangement saved from scrapping."

     Evading the torch by inches, number 9 then was sent along with her two cars to the World's Fair. CB&Q then kept the little train in storage at their Aurora, Illinois shops until 1948 when Chicago held its railroad fair. The engine and her coaches were leased to the fair to be run as a quaint old time western train. Painted for the defunct Deadwood Central (which, incidentally, according to The Mineral Belt Vol. 1 was the railroad from which CB&Q 537 came from), labeled “Chief Crazy Horse”, and sporting a hack false balloon stack, the engine chugged around a small track pulling visitors.
     She was again stored until leased in 1957 by the tourist hauler Black Hills Central in South Dakota. The line simply put the engine on display. I have read in a few spots that some believe the engine was pulled
behind another engine and made to look operational by burning tires in the boiler.

     Twenty-four years later, in 1981, the Colorado & Southern was finally absorbed into the Burlington Northern and the controversy began. By 1986 BN and the Black Hills Central entered a legal fight over the ownership of the mogul. The end result was that BN decided to send it home by giving it to the Colorado Historical Society. They had it stored on Morningstar siding near Silver Plume on the Georgetown Loop RR. It was relettered on one side in alignment with C&S days, though it still retained a red cab for some time. Its greatest surprise was yet to come.

     When the CHS, who owned the GLRR trackage, and the folks who owned and operated the railroad  reached an impasse in negotiations, a major debacle resulted. The end result was that the operator took all of the rolling stock and locos off the property and moved or donated them elsewhere. Still wanting to operate the railroad, the CHS, hunted for a new operator. However, they had no locomotives…except number 9. Both 74 and 9 were shipped away to check the feasibility of restoring one of them to operation. It was determined that number 9, using 74’s tender would be the best bet. In 2006 Uhrich Locomotive Works completed work on number 9 and sent her back to the Loop. It was an exciting day, yet, retained a bitter end.


     There was already an uproar over the changing of GLRR operators, but the furor was somewhat tempered by the excitement of seeing a real C&S loco run again. When number 9 was pulled out of service due to mechanical problems before the end of the season in 2006, many people’s anger erupted. Regardless of opinions on all sides of the issue, number 9 was traded to the town of Breckenridge. They had an old Sundown and Southern locomotive at their Rotary Snowplow Park. This engine seems to have had more promise to have the power to pull trains on the Loop and is being refurbished.
     The trade originally required that number 9 had to be operated. There were plans to build a short section of track in Breckenridge and run the loco off of compressed air. This has all changed and, after an impressive cosmetic makeover at Mammoth Locomotive Works, the engine was put on display in December 2010 between a rotary and a C&S boxcar at what is called Rotary Snowplow Park. Reinvented once again.


31: Age Matters 

     Popular culture (read: those trying to make money) bombard us with a belief that whatever is young and new is better. It wasn’t that long ago, however, when age was venerated, when being older made your opinion and insight valuable to others. Today, it seems, all it takes is being young, trendy, and having the ability make a hit song. C&S 31 comes from the former era and it holds a title: the oldest locomotive in Colorado; and that counts for something.

     C&S 31's story is not as storied as her other surviving companions, but it contains its curiosities just as well.  In the words of Jason Midyette who chronicled her story in The Bogies and the Loop, her "survival was more a result of random chance than any actual plan; had the C&S kept it, it would have been rebuilt and modernized (and ultimately scrapped) and had the locomotive been in better shape, it might not have been set aside for display in 1932."  

    Built in 1880, C&S 31 began its career as number 51 on the South Park Line. It later joined the Denver, Leadville, & Gunnison as 191 and finally the C&S as number 31. It served for 22 years on those lines until it was sold for $2000 in April 1899 (or 1902-sources vary), a year after the creation of the C&S, to the Edward Hines Lumber Company in Wisconsin and run as Washburn & Northwestern #7. In 1905 it was sold to the Robbins Lumber Co. in Rhinelander, which was bought in 1919 by the Thunder Lake Lumber Co. As a side note, one source said that the cautious owner of the line thought it was too heavy to be used unless the ground was frozen. Midyette states that "By 1932, No. 191 was completely worn out and seldom used."  It was retired that year and placed on display at the Rhinelander Logging Museum in Wisconsin, moving there under its own power for the last time. It remained there for a little over four decades.


    The locomotive's time at Rhinelander was not kind.  The museum at the time pursued a philosophy that the more access the public has to history, the more likely they are to feel connected to it.  Consequently, the engine was fully accessible and climbable.  As a result, many parts went missing and the loco's condition diminished.
     
    Finally, in February 1973, through the efforts of Bob Richardson of the Colorado Railroad Museum, the engine was moved back home. Richardson found that a Mexican railroad that owned an original Thunder Lake engine was closing down.  He convinced the Rhinelander Museum to accept his offer that if he could get this engine to them, they would give him No. 31.

   Now back in her home state she was restored to her appearance as DL&G 191, including cutting back her smokebox to its length while on the South Park.  One very unique aspect of 51/191/31 is that, as stated in The Bogies and the Loop,
 she "received little in the way of updates and has remained a remarkably original example of an 1880's narrow gauge freight locomotive."  In addition to its authenticity, it is believed to be the oldest surviving locomotive in the state at over 130 years old. In 2009 the engine received an entire cosmetic make-over at CRRM and has been proudly displayed on numerous publicity materials related to the museum. For at least a few of us, yes, age matters.

 60: Stay ready for work 'til the end.  

     For those who relish the goal to eat, drink, and be merry, life’s twilight years hold little promise. But for those who believe their lives hold a greater purpose, one that outshines occupation, we want to stay ready for work, whatever divine work this might be.  One of the five C&S survivors did just that.

     C&S 60 began her life on the Utah & Northern in 1886. She eventually joined the DL&G and ultimately the Colorado & Southern. A story concerning her latter days suggests that the engine was being used to scrap the remainder of the Clear Creek line in 1941 when, well, she just broke down in the town of Idaho Springs where the loco was subsequently donated to the city for display.  

     The "break down" story, however, is likely a myth.  The Colorado & Southern Railway Society, a historical preservation group that has taken on the mantel of caring for No. 60 and her coach, have studied the engine's service records at the Colorado Railroad Museum and there found evidence to discredit such a story.  

     Their research reports, "The C&S mileage records for 60 show she received a complete overhaul in April of 1936. She ran for a year till mid 1937 when she was stored serviceable in Leadville from mid 1937-January 1939.  The records contain monthly inspection sheets filled out for every month of her layup and which state she was stored serviceable in Leadville."

     There the diminutive consolidation lived out her remaining years ready to do the work she was born to do.  In fact, she had the chance to do just that one more time when in the early winter of 1939 she again plied the rails for 6 months.  She was stored again in June, but this time, as she awaited another fire in her belly, the mileage record demonstrates that it was not to happen again.

     The C&S Ry. Society, consequently concludes that "all of our research seems to support that the idea of the breakdown is a myth."  They theorize that "the story of the 'breakdown' seems to come from having one of her eccentric links disconnected.  We haven't determined why that is or when it was done.  However, from the records, and from physical inspection this far, 60 appears to be in excellent mechanical condition with only mild wear from her service time."

     In 1938 the C&S offered towns along its line a locomotive for display purposes.  No one took the bait.  Yet, a 1941 article in the Clear Creek Mining Journal calls No. 60 in Idaho Springs a "gift."  There is a bit of a complication in this gift, though.  Apparently, Clear Creek County argued, as long ago as 1936, that the railway had not paid a tax debt.  In 1941 the county accepted the locomotive as a settlement for this dispute.  Curiously, the town specified in the agreement that they wanted No. 60 to wear a snowplow.

     On Tuesday, May 13th, scrapper Rube Morris hauled the engine and a coach (no. 70) to Idaho Springs using engine 69.  The engine and her small train were on display on a small strip of land between Miner Street and Colorado Blvd.  At some point a log-cabin styled gift shop was built next to the train.  Some have referenced that the gift shop owner sometimes burned old tires in the boiler to simulate steam in order to garner customers.

   As in the case of engine 71 in Central City, it appears that the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad sent a crew to spiff up the engines in the 1950s or 1960s and consequently repainted the engine with the Burlington herald on the tender and "C&S" under a smaller engine number on the cab.  When the paint scheme was returned to the original, as it is today, is unclear.

     Using temporary track, the train was moved forward on March 14, 1987 into what is now Harold A. Anderson Park, the spot where a few year earlier, an old school house was moved as well which serves today as Idaho Springs' city hall.  This is where she is today.  In the summer of 2015 the C&S Ry. Society completely needle scaled and repainted 60's smokebox with a graphite based paint mix to reflect its appearance while in operation.  They also added coal boards to the tender.





     In the early 2000s number 60 also was taken into consideration for operation on the Georgetown Loop.  Jason Midyette, one of the directors of the South Park Rail Society, explained that, "CHS (now History Colorado) did approach Idaho Springs in 2004 about using No. 60 on the Loop and Idaho Springs was seemingly favorable to the idea. In further discussions, it was brought to everyone's attention that 60 was the only surviving C&S narrow gauge locomotive that was completely original and essentially untouched from its days on the C&S. As returning it to operation would entail changes and replacement parts, a case was made that 60 should be preserved as a record of C&S practices which would be irrevocably lost if the locomotive was operated on the Loop. CHS and Idaho Springs decided that the locomotive should be preserved and it was no longer considered for operation.  
     Today number 60, with her coach, still sits proudly on the track looking ahead down the former right-of-way on Idaho Street.

     History has led these five locomotives down a trail as serpentine as the grades they once climbed. Where will history take us? It might, like 71, take us back where we came from. We might find ourselves left behind like 74, but it could turn out better than we expect. Maybe we’ll find ourselves in a situation that requires us to reinvent ourselves like number 9. For those of us who’ve earned our keep, we may need to remember that age matters like C&S 31. Yet, no matter what life brings our way, no matter when we might finally drop off the serviceable list like number 60, there’s a calling to keep doing the work we were created to do until we change trains at that great Union Depot that awaits us all.


References

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Griswold, P.R., Kindig, R.H., & Trombly, C. (1988). Georgetown and the Loop.  Denver: The Rocky Mountain Railroad Club.

Griswold, P.R. (1988). Railroads of Colorado: Colorado Traveler Guidebooks.  Frederick: Renaissance House Publication.

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Klinger, Tom and Denise.  C&S Clear Creek Memories and Then Some. 

Larson, Kurt.  "Washburn Northwestern Railroad." www.battleaxcamp.tripod.com. 2008.

Loop Communication Committee.  (2005, 27 April).  Meeting Minutes. Retrieved from www.savethetrain.org. 

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Midyette, Jason. (January 2018). "Sole Survivor: the last DSP&P locomotive."  The Bogies and the Loop, 9-13.

Midyette, Jason. Correspondence via email February 2020 concerning the Georgetown Loop's interest in C&S 60 in 2004.

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Pictorial Supplement to Denver South Park & Pacific: Abridged Edition.  (1986). Lakewood: Trowbridge Press.

Poor, M.C. (1976). Denver South Park & Pacific: Memorial Edition.  Denver: Rocky Mountain Railroad Club.

Rhinelander Logging Museum Complex. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.rhinelanderchamber.com/.

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Shreiner, T. (2009, 20 July). C&S 71 Video.  Message posted to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DenverSouthPark/. 

Trent, M. (2011). Engine No. 74 – Back Home Again (1952-present). Retrieved from http://www.riograndesouthern.com/RGSTechPages/_bdwhite/index.htm Page.

Trent, M. (2011). Engine No. 74 – The Colorado & Southern Years (1921-1945). Retrieved from http://www.riograndesouthern.com/RGSTechPages/_bdwhite/index.htm Page.

Trent, M. (2011). Engine No. 74 – The Rio Grande Southern Years (1948-1952). Retrieved from http://www.riograndesouthern.com/RGSTechPages/_bdwhite/index.htm Page.

Trent, Mike (2017).  "Possible Photo of C&S 75 or 76 in 1965." Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad Forum. Retrieved from https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DSP-P/conversations/topics/19725 

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