The Railroad Riches of Golden, part 5

See Part 1 here.

See Part 2 here.

See Part 3 here.

See Part 4 here.

 Almost an engine: a rotary snowplow

In the meantime, with still no South Park locomotive at the museum, an event came about that sent it a close second, a rotary snowplow.  A steam-powered rotary snowplow is essentially a locomotive that powers blades to attack snow on the track and launches it out of a chute instead of powering drive wheels.  Machines like this were necessary on the many snow plagued lines of the South Park.  

One of the South Park’s two rotaries, No. 99201 was ordered in 1899 in part to clear the legendary amounts of snow over Altman Pass, site of the Alpine Tunnel, on the way to Gunnison, but the railroad found it weighed too much for this section and could not fit through the tunnel.  Instead, it was stationed at Como and used on other parts of the C&S.  The plow was so big, in fact, that its trucks could be switched between narrow and standard gauges and thus the rotary was used at various times on both.  When abandonment finally came to the narrow gauge, the rotary was standard-gauged again and used in Cheyenne, Wyoming and then spent the remainder of its days infrequently plowing the standard gauged Leadville to Climax route, it’s last run being in front of a diesel in 1965, a late date for anything steam-powered in the US.

In October of ‘72, John Terrill, president of the C&S, finally decided to retire rotary 99201 and donate it to the Colorado Railroad Museum.  The donation, however, came with challenges.  The behemoth machine had to be moved, of course, but while the C&S was happy to assist on its lines, it was necessary, due to the isolated C&S Leadville to Climax branch, to coordinate with the less than accommodating Rio Grande to move it from Leadville to the C&S connection in Pueblo.  The D&RGW refused to move the plow with a dismissive comment that it was “unseaworthy.”  Unfortunately for Bob Richardson, this unhelpful spirit exemplified many of his dealings with Rio Grande management.

On the flip side, Bob found the C&S management a very different story, an example of which was the down-to-earth, kind president John Terrill who went to bat to get the rotary to the CRRM.  After hearing of the Rio Grande’s claim that the plow was not safe to move, Terrill gathered several members of the C&S mechanical department and insisted the Rio Grande conduct an inspection of the rotary with his team at the same time.  It seems that, unsurprisingly, once the C&S put on the pressure, the "unseaworthy" plow suddenly found its sea-legs, and the D&RGW agreed to move it, though they made sure to charge $1400 to do so.

After No. 99201’s move over the Rio Grande and then the C&S, she came to rest at the museum, for

many years outside the museum’s gates, behind a former Union Pacific 0-6-0 engine acquired about the same time.  The museum now had an incredibly powerful symbol of the legendary fights that the C&S fought year after year against snow in the Rocky Mountains.

While this victory with C&S rotary 99201 was in hand, the chance to get DSP&P 191 was starting to look a bit out-of-reach.

Part 6