1963-64 C&S News - Plans to run C&S 9 in Black Hills, Pine Depot burns, Alpine Tunnel visit

A wealth of railfan history exists in the archives of the Rocky Mountain Rail Report, the newsletter of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club started in 1939.  Here is some miscellaneous South Park Line/C&S-related news from the 1963-1964 editions.

1963 

March

(C&S No. 9)

Club member W. L. Van Patten has sent us the following report about the Black Hills Central Railroad of Hill City, South Dakota: 

The Black Hills Central now has seven steam locomotives: "Klondike Casey," ex-White Pass & Yukon 

No. 9 at Black Hills 1961

2-8-0 No. 69, powers a 5-car train between Hill City and Oblivion on the narrow-gauge portion of the CB&Q Keystone branch, which is three-rail between these points.  "Chief Crazy Horse," ex-Colorado & Southern 3-foot gauge 2-6-0 No. 9, scheduled for new flues, is to handle a 3-car train over the same 10-mile route. (Ed. This is an awfully interesting note.  C&S 9 was leased to the Black Hills by the CB&Q after its last use in the Chicago Railfair of 1949.  It was never run on the Black Hills so this plan never came to fruition.  Instead No. 9 was repatriated to Colorado in 1988 on the orders of the CB&Q's successor Burlington Northern.  She sat on Morning Star siding of the Georgetown Loop in Silver Plume for many years until restored to operation in 2006.  She ran for part of one season and was sidelined.  Later she was sent for display at Highline Railroad Park in Breckenridge, Colorado, where she is today.)

A standard-gauge Baldwin 2-6-2, ex-Prescott & Northwestern No. 7, runs on the 5-mile segment of the Burlington tracks from Keystone up to Oblivion.  Other motive power includes an ex-Sumpter Valley narrow-gauge Shay (currently being re-flued); a narrow-gauge Porter 2-6-0 from Guatemala; an ex-C&NW 2-foot gauge Davenport 0-4-0; and a standard-gauge 10-wheeler, ex-C&NW No. 444. 

In its five years of operation, the Black Hills Central has handled over 150,000 passengers. 

(DSP&P and Pictorial Supplement Book)

December

At a meeting in early 1960 the Club's Board of Directors was advised that Hotchkiss owned a very fine base map of the State, prepared originally in 1913 by the old Clason Map Company but never carried through to publication. Hotchkiss was interested in completing this old map and approached the Club with regard to also incorporating some of the copyrighted detail area maps which had been included in such historical works as Denver, South Park & Pacific, Rails Around Gold Hill, and the Pictorial Supplement to the South Park book, all published by our organization in preceding years. 

1964

(Dow Helmers and his book Historical Alpine Tunnel)

August

Other publications pertaining to railroad history continue to appear. Of interest to Club members is a large volume containing a detailed study devoted entirely to the famous Alpine Tunnel of the old Denver, South Park and Pacific. The volume is the work of Club member Dow Helmers of Pueblo and published by Sage Books of Denver. 

(Alpine Tunnel Exploration - Les Logue)

October

The old South Park's legendary Alpine Tunnel continues to fascinate railfans -- and the general public alike. The September 8 issue of the Denver Post carried an interesting illustrated story of a recent exploration of the tunnel by a group of Leadville, Climax and Boulder people, prominent among whom was Rocky Mountain Railroad Club charter member Les Logue of Leadville. The "Empire" Section of the same paper for the following Sunday, September 13th, published an excellent story on the same subject by Club member Dow Helmers of Pueblo. Dow is author of "Alpine Tunnel," a detailed history of this famous bore published this past summer by Sage Books of Denver.

(Pine Depot Burns, Westall Monument Vandalized)

Pine depot 1951 as antique shop

Also bringing sorrow to railfans in recent weeks were two other items of little importance to the general
public -- one, news that the old South Park depot building at Pine, Colorado built in the late 1870's to serve the little town in the middle reaches of South Platte Canon, was destroyed by fire early Sunday morning, August 30th. (Ed. Pine, today is the site of a display of two narrow gauge gondolas.  They are former Rio Grande cars, one repainted in C&S garb and the other as a DSP&P car).

The second, not even publicized, was the loss by vandalism of the bronze marker placed several years ago by Rocky Mountain Railroad Club members on the granite monument to South Park Engineer Billy Westall who lost his life when DL&G engine 195 ran into a wash in and turned over near Dome Rock on August 28th, 1898.