The Swan Songs of Central City - Part 2

 

The Swan Songs of Central City

-Part 2

by Kurt Maechner

Here is Part 1

Twisting Arms for Trains

C&S 9 and cars at 1939 NY World's Fair

A J.W. Cooper in Chicago replied positively to Rice’s request [on behalf of Central City for a display train], but the situation took an abrupt turn when Cooper subsequently forwarded the request to the Burlington Route’s president Ralph Budd.  The very next day, Budd sent a response letter to Rice stating “Serious consideration is being given to placing the old narrow gauge engine and cars in the Museum of Science and Industry at Chicago upon release from the New York Fair.  As soon as definite decision is reached will let you know.”

Ralph Budd CB&Q President

But did he let Rice know?  Possibly not, as two months later Rice again wrote to Budd about the donation, as well as Edward Flynn, the CB&Q’s Vice President.  Rice’s letter began with a review of the Central City Opera House Association’s request and then turned to a pressure point: Rice reminded Budd and Flynn that “under your authority” a display locomotive had previously been offered to two other locations, the city of Denver and the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.  The first recipient was not interested and the death of the owner of the second left the donation to fall through.  Rice made a logical appeal, “Therefore, as we have given no engines away for exhibition purposes, and as I have had your authority to give an engine to the city of Denver, I thought under the circumstances as presented to me, that it would be all right to assume your approval of giving this engine and two cars to this Association.”

Rice, then, in his letter, turned to more gentle appeals.  He first stressed the visibility of the engine and the amount of people who visit Central City.  These, he stressed, would be touched by the generosity of the CB&Q’s donation.  Next, he played high society by telling of the very influential Denver members of the Association, in particular Miss Anne Evans.  Finally, Rice laid out various plans that were already in motion including the choice of location for the display train, the selection of the engine and cars, plans for its transport to Black Hawk and then to Central City, and an arranged dedication ceremony for the train to which Budd and Flynn and their guests had been asked to attend.  In conclusion, Rice stated that advertisement of the event was in the docket ready to be printed in publications around the nation.  His final sentence read, “I trust I have your approval of the action taken.”

It is worthy of note, that by this time it seems Robert Rice had given up hope of acquiring the New York World’s Fair engine, C&S No. 9.  Instead, from this point on, he had set his eyes on an 1896-built engine, 2-8-0 C&S No. 71, constructed to serve on the Clear Creek Line, though it also found its way to the South Park Line where it was used not long ago in scrap operations.  Rice also settled on the potential accompanying cars as C&S gondola No. 4319 and C&S combination baggage and passenger coach No. 20.

Robert Rice’s gracious letter to the CB&Q’s president and vice president seemed to produce the opposite of its intended effect, and the CB&Q began to dig in its heels.  The following day, VP Edward Flynn wrote a four-sentence reply in which he requested to know the scrap value of the proposed donation equipment and concluded with a finger-pointing comment that “The C&S as you well know is no position to spend any money for any purpose if it can be avoided.”

Rice took Flynn’s request, got an evaluation of the scrap value of the equipment from the C&S’s superintendent of motive power, and sent his findings to Flynn in another letter a month later, November 20, 1940.  After quickly dispensing with this info in his much curter letter, Rice moved on to press for the donation.  He centered the motive for the donation on publicity, and, simultaneously, as a means to show the “good will” of the Burlington company towards the elites in Denver and the many visitors to Central City.  He even tried a half-way deal by suggesting they donate just the engine for the time being and send the two cars at a later date.          

Three days after this letter, the Opera House Association called Rice about making plans for the train’s arrival.  Feeling even more pressure now, Rice sent a follow up letter to Vice President Flynn requesting an in-person meeting about the matter the following week when Rice would be in Chicago, to which Flynn replied that he would be happy to chat, but frankly, “I really can see no benefits, and the company is certainly in no shape financially to give anything to anybody.”

  It is unclear whether or not the requested meeting occurred, but it might have been a moot point since a little over a month later, on January 6th, 1941, the woman who initiated the request for the display train, Anne Evans, died at age 69, her plea still put off by the CB&Q.  

    This would not be the end, however, as numerous individuals now put pressure on the CB&Q.  In February, John Evans, President of The First National Bank of Denver, wrote to Flynn to persuade him of the opportunity to be a part of a grand venture to do “a restoration job similar...to that carried out in Williamsburg, Virginia,” adding the names of others who believed in the importance of the display train such as Mr. T.A. Dines, President of the United States National Bank in Denver, and Colorado’s governor, the Honorable Ralph L. Carr.  Evans asserted, “The place of the C&S in the early history and development of the State makes me feel the carrying out of the plan [to get a narrow gauge train] which has been under discussion with Mr. Rice for some time is of moment to the whole enterprise.”  

This time CB&Q president Budd replied instead of Ed Flynn, telling Evans that the C&S was likely headed into bankruptcy and they just could not part with an asset.  Apparently $1170, as Budd stated as the worth of the train, was too much to lose.    

Despite the repeated resistance, on March 15th, 1941, a pressured President Ralph Budd, after another talk with Flynn, finally gave in, sort of.  Budd was willing to consider loaning, not donating, a C&S engine and car.  Maybe to express his grudging reluctance, he dropped the idea of a coal car out of the offer.  His reluctance is evidenced in his letter to T.A. Dines in which he wrote, “we are willing to take a chance on letting this piece of C&S property be used for the exhibit.  In view of the present financial situation of the C&S I felt it would be better to make a loan rather than a gift.”

At long last, a pseudo-victory was in their hands.  Central City was to be home, at least on loan, to an authentic Colorado & Southern narrow gauge train.  The 45-year-old C&S engine would be accompanied by combination coach No. 20 and, despite Budd’s seeming hold-out, gondola No. 4319.  

Central City planned a grand affair for Saturday, July 5, 1941 to dedicate the historic train with a large luncheon, a national radio broadcast of the event, and a round of congratulatory speeches.  The town’s happiness even went so far as to invite the resistant Mr. Ralph Budd to give one of the orations.  In fact, the Association was even willing to change the day of the event in case Budd could not make their planned date.  C&S President Rice extended Central City’s gracious invitation to Budd, but the CB&Q president replied, with regret, that he had “other matters” that would preclude him from attending. 

On the Way to a New Home

No. 71 and her train were taken to the C&S Denver shops and put in pristine cosmetic condition.  The consolidation, the name for a locomotive with a 2-8-0 wheel configuration, glimmered like she did when rolled out of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1896 as she, the gondola, and the combine were hauled in the middle of a freight run through Clear Creek Canyon with C&S No. 70 on point and No. 69 shoving from behind.  

While much attention is given to engine 71, the two cars chosen for display with her are historic in their own right.  While the C&S owned scores of narrow gauge gondolas to haul freight such as ore and coal, nearly all of them would be lost to history, some even filled with rocks and buried on creek banks next to rail lines to limit erosion.  Only one car, however, survived its siblings’ fates.  In time, the 1902-built gondola 4319 would become the sole surviving C&Sng gondola.  The other car, combination baggage and passenger coach No. 20, formerly a Union Pacific car, began life on the C&S as No. 121, but was renumbered by 1906 to No. 20.  In 1925, with the approaching demise of passenger service, the car’s number changed once again, this time to No. 025 when it became a wrecking work car.  For its final role as a display piece, the combine was restored to No. 20.

Once the display train reached Black Hawk, the locomotive and two cars were set out at the end of track where they sat for some weeks until each piece of the train could be loaded onto one of the machines that helped end its active life: a truck.  Starting on April 24th, with gasoline fumes trailing, the train was hauled piece by piece, up to Central City and eased onto the display track near the former Spring Street railroad crossing.  The display train had come to rest in its new home, and none too soon as a week and a half later the C&S made its last scheduled Clear Creek run, ending the life of regular railroading in the canyon.

With the dedication ceremony ended, the train, still owned by the C&S and leased for one dollar per year, became a liability to the railroad.  Fear of responsibility from injuries in cases such as children climbing on the train led the C&S’s general attorney to suggest selling the train at last to the Central City Opera House Association.  The CB&Q again refused to let go of what they still saw as a needed financial asset.  Somehow, by the following year, on June 1st, 1942, the C&S got its way and sold the whole train to the Association for one dollar with one stipulation: if the train was ever used for any other purpose than “exhibition” it would be returned to the ownership of the C&S Railway Co.  This clause would be tempted several decades later.