The Swan Songs of Central City - Part 5

The Swan Songs of Central City

-Part 5

by Kurt Maechner

Here is Part 1

Here is Part 2

Here is Part 3

Here is Part 4

 Open for Business

Finally, in September of 1968, with only ten days remaining in the tourist season, the Colorado Central Narrow Gauge Railway opened for business, hauling tourists to the end of their quarter mile of track and back for 75 cents-a-person.  With No. 44 steamed up, still lettered for the International Railways of Central America, the CCNG began hauling its first trains.  In the same month that saw the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and the introduction of the Boeing 747, a tiny portal to the past came back alive with the resurrection of a tiny stretch of narrow gauge railway from the 1870s.  For decades, C&S narrow gauge mileage had gone down until it was all gone.  Now, the turntable had turned and, for the first time in history, a C&S narrow gauge line had been brought back to life.  

Disappointingly, despite the excitement, ridership was low, and, by the end of their very expensive and short first season, the railroad was essentially bankrupt, owing tens of thousands of dollars in loans.  Lindsey put it simply, “We had no money.”  

Money or not, it was time to lay into the prep and development for a full second season in 1969.   As they scurried to find a way forward, Rosa and Lindsey made a decision they could see was in the cards: the Ashbys decided to cover all the expenses with their personal funds and, to add insult to injury, they would not take a salary.  This state of events would not be short-lived.  In fact, it would be a way of life for many years to come as the couple continued their full-time jobs while running their struggling railroad after-hours.  

What is the way forward in a situation like this?  According to Lindsey, “We've survived by never risking more than we could make up at the end of the year-although we've teetered on it.”  To make ends meet, two sources of support came at crucial times.  The Ashbys first credit the City of Central for “cover[ing] our mistakes while we were learning the business.  And we’ve made every classic blunder a small business can make; many of them twice, I’m sorry to say.”  

The second source of support is one to which many can relate: begging from relatives.  When the coffer was low, they got on the phone.  Friends are a grace given in life, but family is a lifeline that one can count on, and count on them the Ashbys did, taking loans from, “any relative who had more than was necessary to survive.”  They promised to pay them back, and they did, albeit in regular installments over time.

July 1969 - Jeff Terry collection

Thankfully, the railroad survived its first complete season in 1969, but with only one locomotive, No. 44.  The other engine, IRCA No. 40, purchased at the same time as the 44, had not yet even left Central America.  With no motive power backup, their chances of ongoing success could be precarious.  

Of course, an obvious question arises: Why didn’t the CCNG restore the steam engine sitting right at their boarding site, Colorado & Southern Railway 2-8-0 No. 71, on display there since 1941?  The story surrounding this possibility may be true, or hearsay, or a mixture of both.  

Some sources, such as F. Hol Wagner, encouragingly announced in his 1970 book The Colorado Road that permission was given to the CCNG to restore and operate No. 71 for sporadic use.  What Wagner leaves out is who requested this permission and who gave it.

There is a possible answer to the question of what parties were involved in asking for and receiving permission for the restoration of No. 71.  The Colorado & Southern Railway sold the engine and two cars to the Central City Opera House Association in 1942, but according to documents discovered by Rick Steele, who worked at the CCNG, the railroad retained 1/3 ownership.  The Association had another 1/3 of ownership and the City of Central owned the remaining portion.  Steele believes that, at some point, the Opera House Association gave their share of ownership to the Colorado Historical Society (CHS).  Did the CHS, not the railroad, request permission to restore the engine from Central City?  Was it, then, the city which granted this permission?  While the answers to these questions remain murky to the author, another part of the story, again through hearsay, makes the tale larger.

Aug. 1980 Bud Bulgrin photo-Jeff Terry Collection

As the story goes, one of the remaining 1/3-owners of No. 71, the Colorado & Southern Railway, was not happy with the prospect of the engine coming back to life.  Back in 1942, when the railway agreed to sell the train to the Association for a dollar, the C&S stipulated in the agreement that if the train was ever used for any other purpose than “exhibition” it would be returned to the railroad’s ownership.  Possibly in keeping their word to this part of the paperwork, according to an engineer at the CCNG and one of Lindsey Ashby’s business partners who told the following to Steele, the C&S, when it got wind of the plan to steam up 71 after nearly thirty years of idleness, sent word that they would scrap the engine on the spot for back taxes if the railroad tried to run her. 

If the story is true at all, in part or entirely, one thing did get scrapped: the idea of old 71 running on the Ashby’s railroad.  Besides being pushed around the yard for various logistical reasons, the engine never got a fire in its boiler while the CCNG plied the rails. 

To put the story to rest, the author asked Lindsey Ashby directly whether he was ever given the go-ahead to run the C&S engine.  He responded emphatically, “No.  We never had permission to restore or use 71.”

No. 40 at Last

Fortuitously, a more reliable option for additional motive power became possible in 1970.  The other locomotive purchased back in 1968 from the International Railways of Central America was at last headed to the Central City Narrow Gauge when 1920 oil-burner No. 40 started its journey north from the city of San Salvador.  Ironically, the diesel hauling the 2-8-0 experienced a mechanical failure, and the half century-old steam engine was coaxed to life to continue the trip on its own.

Trouble struck, however, in the form of a political impasse in the country as the recently nationalized International Railways of Central America was unable to pay back loans to the government.  One byproduct of the problematic railroad situation seemed to be that the border was blocked against No. 40.  The locomotive’s progress was halted indefinitely and hope for the engine’s use in Central City was ultimately given up.

And so, the railroad back in Central City soldiered on, working tooth and nail to keep their half mile of track alive with one engine.  

Something shifted, though, in 1972, and good news came regarding No. 40.  The steamer was finally allowed to continue its trip after a two-year delay.  Lindsey teamed up with Don Drawer, a man developing a tourist destination in Colorado that included a narrow gauge railroad he would name the Sundown and Southern.  Lindsey traveled south of the border with Don to finally move No. 40 north along with another engine No. 111, a business car, and a caboose for Drawer’s project.  No. 40 hauled the train itself for part of the journey.  A diesel did the rest of the work until the two engines and two cars were later transferred to standard gauge cars and finally truck trailers.  After some work following the engine’s arrival in Central City, No. 40 served as No. 44’s backup.

Winds in the Canyon

With No. 40’s arrival, the CCNG operators were grateful to finally have two locomotives on hand, and yet, a dream kept pulling their attention westward.  The winds in the canyon sent news of one of the most exciting Colorado & Southern narrow gauge rebirths imaginable: the abandoned 19th century railroad engineering marvel known as the Georgetown Loop, up the canyon from Central City, was being raised from its grave.  The Loop Line, whose resurrection had been talked of for years by the Colorado Historical Society, albeit without much tangible evidence for it becoming reality, was finally showing real signs of life.  Rolling stock had now been acquired and restoration work had begun on the old right-of-way.  

The Ashbys had known for a while that the operation in Central City would never be financially viable.  In contrast, the Loop project, with its historical society partnership and promising future, could be an entirely different ball game.  Three days after Thanksgiving in 1972, the Central City Narrow Gauge partners walked the old C&S grade of the Loop line and subsequently decided together to offer to help reconstruct and then operate the line.  While they planned to simultaneously continue the struggling Central City line, their spirits felt a new lightness with the hope that the Loop might be the way out of their present circumstances.

October 1973 Rocky Mtn. Rail Report

In early 1973, the Ashbys and their partners’ offer to the Colorado Historical Society was accepted and they became the driving force in reconstruction of the Georgetown Loop.  In September of that year, IRCA No. 44 left No. 40 behind in Central City and became the first engine on the ground in Silver Plume since the line’s 1939 abandonment.  She was steamed up three days later to herald the news: a live railroad was returning to upper Clear Creek Valley.