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

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.

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.