The Railroad Riches of Golden, part 7

See Part 1 here.
See Part 2 here.

See Part 3 here.

See Part 4 here.

See Part 5 here.

See Part 6 here.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1973

GOLDEN, COLORADO

THE COLORADO RAILROAD MUSEUM

Today, seventy one years after she was shipped away from her home state, Bob witnesses DSP&P 191 arrive in Golden after her journey via standard gauge gondola and then motor truck. He is relieved the 2-8-0 made it.  Along the way from Wisconsin, the engine was briefly ‘lost’ when an ice storm caused a break in communication lines with the Santa Fe.  Thankfully, she was ‘found’ and made the rest of the journey without incident.

Despite the cool February Rocky Mountain air, it is still warmer than, as Bob will later write, the “usual zeroish winter weather” of northern Wisconsin where she was shipped from. This may give the Colorado Railroad Museum crew hope that the 191’s wheels can finally be convinced to move.

The 93-year old locomotive rests on a lowboy trailer in the museum yard, waiting for the adjacent crane, it’s tall spindly arm pointed high with cables descending around the engine, to finally reunite 191 with rails on native soil.  With only a stubby running board where a cow catcher pilot once proudly strutted forward, an elongated smokebox added from one of the logging roads where her original shorter one should be, and her original balloon smoke stack long ago replaced with a thin straight one, she lacks some of the distinctive features that would tag her as her former 1880s self, though in reality her main structure has actually changed very little since she left the Baldwin Locomotive Works.

Regardless of her look, she is a gem, the oldest native Coloradan locomotive in the state, the museum’s only South Park engine, and the most authentic DSP&P loco in existence.  It has cost more than $8000 to get No.191, along with her stiff wheels, to this spot, but finally, the cables running up to the crane’s arm, cables that seem so small compared to 191’s 56,000 pound girth, lift her in the air and then ever so gently set her down on Colorado rails.

Denver, South Park & Pacific No. 191 is home.  

But like a stubborn child, her wheels still will not move. 

The Colorado Railroad Museum’s small Plymouth diesel was called on to assist 191’s mobility issues.  The little diesel tugged and pushed, but the 2-8-0’s wheels, doused with penetrating oil, refused to rotate.  The process was continued for several weeks by a surely discouraged crew until the amount of oil used reached into the gallons.  Suddenly, one day, the Plymouth “Peewee” locomotive tugged once more and DSP&P 191’s wheels moved for the first time in four decades.

Despite the thousands of dollars spent to get her to Golden, a cost that was gratefully later diminished by the sale of the other Mexican engine and a few cars to the Huckleberry tourist railroad in Michigan, the engine that struck out its pilot north of Gunnison towards the Pacific, towards a grade that was never completed, and the same engine that was later shipped so far east had finally come to rest in the state that nearly a century ago had called for her birth.

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Post-Bob Richardson: One more acquisition and a prodigal returns

It was a triumph and a joy to bring No. 191 back home again in 1973, and eighteen years later Bob made the decision to also go home.  In 1991, after 33 years at the helm of the Colorado Railroad Museum, it was time for Bob to rest on his laurels and retire.  Like 191 did at the birth of the twentieth century, Bob moved east.  While he loved his Colorado narrow gauge relics, even they could not compare to being near family, and so Bob packed up his belongings and settled in Pennsylvania.  

While this tale will now take two short branch lines away from Bob Richardson’s journey, both occurred before his passing.  Two Colorado & Southern narrow gauge rolling stock stories from the post-Richardson era at CRRM bear telling.  The first relates to a car that was saved and then nearly lost by a contemporary of Richardson’s.  The second concerns a twist of fate regarding one of the C&S freight cars Bob himself saved, but later sold after the move to Golden.

The only fully intact C&S refrigerator car  

While Bob Richardson remained a bachelor his whole life, he knew how to pass on a legacy as good parents do with their children.  When he left his position and the state in 1991, the Colorado Railroad Museum that he left behind continued to flourish and save history, including more pieces of the Colorado & Southern narrow gauge.  

One very important piece of C&S rolling stock that came to Golden after Bob’s tenure arrived through a sad demise.  Unlike Bob Richardson and Cornelius Hauck, who built their museum with a vision to outlast themselves, another Coloradan who also amassed large quantities of saved narrow gauge equipment seemed to have lacked such foresight.

  Don Drawer operated a small airport in the Colorado prairie near Fort Lupton, north of Denver, but his dreams revolved more so around trains than airplanes.  In the early 1970’s he started snatching up whatever narrow gauge equipment he could find, moving it to his large property with plans to construct and operate a narrow gauge steam railroad and a fictional town where visitors could come to learn all aspects of train operation.  He named his railroad-to-be the Sundown & Southern.

By 1972, when Bob and Cornelius were just learning of their chance to acquire No. 191, Don had already amassed over 200 pieces of rolling stock, including C&S refrigerator car 1113, last used on the Rio Grande Southern.  Unlike her sister survivor C&S refrigerator 1116, acquired by Bob back in 1954 and later sold to the failed Magic Mountain resort, 1113 was not cut up and turned into an amusement park piece.  Instead, Drawer had her moved to Fort Lupton just as she was found in Ridgway, Colorado after being on display there for roughly two decades since the demise of the Rio Grande Southern, still fully intact as she was designed: an old, but authentic, narrow gauge refrigerator car.

The Bogies and the Loop

Drawer’s lack of foresight will later be evidenced, but he certainly made up for this in tenacity.  For just one example, his growing collection, that included C&S 1113, was in need of an engine and he set out to get one.  In an epic move, Don traveled to Central America in order to personally escort a steam locomotive,* business car, and caboose from the country of Guatemala to his Sundown & Southern.  On his way north, tragedy struck when the business car was ransacked by vandals and thieves while the train sat on the track overnight.  Numerous fixtures and historical features were stolen.  Don refused to let this setback stop him and he continued north with plans to restore the engine, committed to his dream because, as the Fort Collins Coloradan newspaper that reported the incident put it that year, “as a railroad nut, he loves it.”

Sadly, the fire in the boiler of Don Drawer’s determination never caught flame.  According to his son Brian, “red tape and county politics” kept his father’s dream from ever becoming reality.  Hundreds of pieces of narrow gauge equipment, in various stages of disrepair, littered his property when he died in the early 2000s, leaving pieces like C&S refrigerator car No. 1113 with an uncertain future.  

The Bogies and the Loop

While the passing of Don Drawer’s dreams and the Sundown & Southern was tragic, he saved lots of equipment that might otherwise have been lost, and when the derelict rolling stock was auctioned off in 2002, it allowed many pieces to get into more steady hands, including refrigerator car No. 1113 which was purchased by CRRM for $500.  Moved to the Museum, the only fully intact surviving C&S refrigerator car was restored in gleaming yellow paint and adorned with the lettering of the line she spent most of her life serving. 

* International Railways of Central America No. 111, later used on the Georgetown Loop

Part 8