The Twisting Tale of the Georgetown Loop
-part 2
by Kurt Maechner
The Trigger
In the late ‘60s yet another big Georgetown Loop newspaper spread came along and, while it might have seemed like just more fruitless grandstanding, there was a group of individuals to whom it held great interest.
This group of individuals, four families to be exact, had gambled their livelihoods on a risky venture to start a tourist route in nearby Central City, Colorado. Lindsey and Rosa Ashby, Dave Ropchan, Dick Huckeby, and Don Grace, the operators of the Colorado Central Narrow Gauge Railway Company, had built the first reconstructed C&S line in history which opened in 1968 and had been running trains out of the old mining town tourist mecca. While they loved running their own business and doing more satisfying work than their nine-to-five jobs, numerous problems beset the short half-mile route from ever being successful and the group, with Lindsey Ashby and his wife Rosa at the helm, were scanning the horizon for a way out. The Georgetown Loop project had the potential to be that solution.
The Ashbys and their friends had walked the Loop right-of-way many times and considered the possibilities. Unlike Central City where they ended their short first season essentially in bankruptcy, the state had already spent a great amount of money to preserve the Loop’s grade. Another contrast was that in order to extend the Central City line to Blackhawk as they had hoped, they would have to pay numerous people to get the land, via mining claims, whereas the entire valley between Georgetown and Silver Plume was already owned by the CHS.
On the other hand, they would be starting from scratch again, resurrecting a long dead, dormant roadbed, though this time it would require reconstruction of seven times the length of their present line, not to mention the numerous expensive bridges needed to complete the full loop. Back in Central there were a few bridges to build as well if they were to reach Black Hawk, but only one significant one over Packard Gulch. The Ashbys and their partners eventually even came up with a way to grade around this trestle site to avoid the structure altogether. The Georgetown Loop, in contrast, would require not just one, but four reconstructed spans, the most prominent of which, the Devil’s Gate Viaduct, would require a bridge spanning 300 feet across a valley, 75 feet higher than the track below it and 95 feet above Clear Creek. None of these bridges could be built around either. The very nature of the Loop line included the bridges themselves.
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| April 1969 Rocky Mountain Rail Report |
In the end, Lindsey and Rosa knew their chances of rebuilding the Loop were as brittle as the crumbling south high bridge abutment that they visited on their occasional walks on the old grade. Yes, they had the railroad equipment; yes, they had the experience, but their resources were in no way comparable to the enormity of such a construction project. Every dime they made in Central City was going back into the line anyway and they were still trying to pay back the seed money that helped them start the half-mile railroad in the first place. Neither they nor the CHS could afford the check needed to repair and rebuild 3 1/2 miles of treacherous mountain railroad.
The Central City group, disheartened, went back to focus on their fledgling little line when suddenly, like an Armstrong pole turns a whole engine on a turntable, one connection changed the destiny of the Georgetown Loop.
Dave Ropchan, Rosa’s brother, an engineer for the Bureau of Mines, and one of the Central City Narrow Gauge partners, knew a fellow engineer who was in the naval reserves as a Seabee commander. He was the training fellow for two-week training camps for Seabee reservists and was looking for a place for a summer camp. As it happened, the Seabees wanted to build, of all things, a railroad.
Uncle Sam Builds a Railroad
“Build and fight in the Navy Seabees. Wanted - Construction workers.”
This was the text of a sign seen around the nation in 1942. As the last stretch of the C&S narrow gauge hustled back and forth between Climax and Leadville, the US military was sending troops to Europe and the Pacific. On December 7th of ‘41 the Japanese had shockingly bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor in a devastating attack. Less than a month later on the 5th of January 1942, realizing the challenge of quickly developing military bases all around the globe, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell formed a unique group of soldiers. Not only were they able to wield weapons but they would be specialists in construction, able to build bases, runways, roads, and anything else the Navy and Marines would need.
representative of their enormous skills, the Seabees. As time and wars changed, so did the need to develop ever-changing skills. In the Korean War the Seabees moved an entire village and sliced half of a mountain away to build an essential Navy runway in the Philippines. In the early 1960’s they constructed the first nuclear power plant in Antarctica.
In the 1970s the Seabees’ skills were called upon once again. A blow to the US occurred when England, a US ally, decided to pull their military out of the Indian Ocean. America was desperate to keep a large presence in the area. To assist, the British agreed to hand over an atoll named Diego Garcia. In ‘71 the Can Do Seabees were called in to the atoll to engage in what would be an 11 year project and their largest-ever construction project during peacetime, to build the Naval Communications Station (NAVCOMMSTA).
For the Seabees, each battalion’s construction skills have to be kept up to maintain readiness even when not deployed. One important construction skill needed in a potential war is railroad building. The ability to move heavy equipment, supplies, and troops long distances in war has often been the specialty of wartime railroads, yet there was not a Seabees battalion left with this skill. All of those who knew railroad construction were retired.
While many of the Seabees labored on the project at Diego Garcia, Reserve Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 15 had been in training back in the States for railroad construction in mobilized circumstances. The battalion sat through lengthy sessions in a classroom learning the ins and outs of grading a roadbed, laying track, and operations. Happily, they had a chance to get out of the stuffy classrooms and do some actual work on track at Fort Carson, Colorado.
Yet, something was missing as the work still rested largely in the realm of the theoretical. This is where the Seabee’s need and the Georgetown Loop’s need crossed paths.
When Dave Ropchan’s fellow engineer, a Seabees commander, explained their desire for on-site railroad construction experience, Dave had the solution: Would you like to regain those railroad building skills on a state project known as the Georgetown Loop?
The Seabee commander’s affirmative answer to Dave’s question was the bang of the starter pistol. In the words of Lindsey Ashby, “You know there’s want and there’s what actually triggers you to do it. This was the trigger.”
A Way Out and a Way Forward
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1972
THANKSGIVING DAY
GOLDEN, COLORADO
The discussion topic is a bit unconventional for a holiday and Rosa Ashby knows it. The top subject to discuss at Thanksgiving, according to The Saturday Evening Post, is “The proper way to cook a turkey.” This discussion wasn’t even close. Instead of turkeys, the talk of herself, her husband, and three others circles around rebuilding a once-world-famous railroad that presently is a moldering wreck of empty, overgrown roadbed and missing bridges with crumbling abutments.
Despite the dismal memories of the group’s visits in years past to the abandoned roadbed between Georgetown and Silver Plume, today there is a touch of actual hope about the line, the most significant of which is Dave’s Seabee friend’s interest in getting the military involved to build the track. On top of this, signs of actual renovation on the Loop, not just aspirations, had started.
Something about President Richard Nixon’s Thanksgiving proclamation this year may have resonated: “From Moses at the Red Sea to Jesus preparing to feed the multitudes, the Scriptures summon us to words and deeds of gratitude, even before divine blessings are fully perceived.” Similarly, this group of five is looking ahead with seeds of hope just beginning to sprout from the ground.
This holiday gathering includes Rosa’s husband Lindsey, her brother Dave Ropchan, as well as Dick Huckeby, and Don Grace. The group is working white-knuckled on the Colorado Central Narrow Gauge Railway in Central City, the first rebuilt C&S line in history. The five-year-old line is a risky business venture and it is still hard work running a short tourist railroad that can’t charge a great deal for fare and has a questionable future. Was the Loop the way out?
The questions and emotions swirling about the room this day surround one crazy question: Can they put a fire under a listless idea and help actually reconstruct and then run the once world-famous Georgetown Loop?
Finally, someone suggests an idea: Walk the grade once again. Maybe if they get out on the ground they can catch a vision, along with some courage to take this on, or maybe what they see will deflate them and redirect them to safer ground and the relief of letting go of an unachievable dream.
The date for the walk was set for three days later.
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