I found a site with a handful of nice C&S photos from Bill Raia's collection. There is a series of shots of C&S 71 pulling a train largely made up of gondolas through Clear Creek canyon in 1939. There is another of a wrecked engine, likely from Boreas Pass. There are also some excellent shots of former C&S No. 74 during its tenure on the Rio Grande Southern. Photos are available for purchase at Raia's SmugMug page.
I came across this video below with a tour of C&S No. 9 and Boreas Pass Road and found it interesting. The narrator is off on some details and railroad terminology, but I think you'll enjoy his delight at experiencing the wonders of the line over the pass. The fall colors are also stunning.
Happy Fall!
In an exciting announcement CPR News published the article "After years of repairs and careful restoration, historic Alpine Tunnel Road reopens near Pitkin." The article lauds the multi-year work done to repair the rock wall damaged in 2016 by an avalanche. The damage closed the road for vehicles to the Alpine Tunnel station complex and the west portal for roughly eight years. During that time, vehicles needed to be parked just a little upgrade of Sherrod Loop. Finally, as the article states, "After years of repairs, a historic road deep in the Rocky Mountains has finally reopened — just in time for fall."
But the news is a bit tempered. If you read to the end, you come across this sentence: "There still is one hiccup when visiting the historic district: a large boulder that’s a little less than a mile from the historic tunnel. Visitors can park at the intersection of the Alpine Tunnel Road and Williams Road, and walk the rest of the way."
What???
There is no other info on the boulder and the circumstance surrounding it. But, essentially, you can at least drive over the old South Park grade eastbound past the former parking spot above Sherrod and, presumably, past the rock wall, but not much farther.
...sigh
Trains that traveled east toward the Alpine Tunnel left Gunnison and reached Parlin roughly 11 miles later. A few landmarks still exist to help one identify the former DSP&P/C&S grade through the small town. In this video I visited the site of Parlin and point out the location of the right-of-way and the wye. At the end we travel on today's CR-76 which is on the old right-of-way. Toward the end I point out where the ROW leaves the road.
In June 1941, just over three decades after the abandonment of the Alpine Tunnel, Railroad Magazine published an article titled "The Alpine Tunnel Route." The author, Lewis R. Lathrop, was a D&RG fireman who knew South Park trainmen who ran trains over the "hill" through the famous tunnel and swapped stories with them in a cigar store. In fact, he started work with the Rio Grande just two years after the arrival of the DSP&P into Gunnison.
There are some epic stories in here including one in which a crew of trainmen and snow shovelers managed to turn an engine around with hydraulic jacks. I admit, I still don't understand how they did it. Essentially, a snow blockade kept them from getting through the east portal of Alpine Tunnel, but snow had drifted back behind them. They decided they had a better chance at plowing through the line westward back to Pitkin, but...they needed to turn an engine around with a plow on the front.
While discussing some epic snowbucking skills the South Park railroaders possessed, Lathrop, the D&RG man, admitted that the DSP&P had superior equipment to theirs and that the DSP&P railroaders were better skilled at fighting snow. As evidence he tells of a blockade of Marshall Pass where two South Park "hoggers" opened the Rio Grande line themselves.
Lewis A. Lathrop actually, as the article puts it, "crossed the great divide" a few months before publication of this article. His son Gilbert assisted with its completion.
*A few notes: the story of a stalled circus train being pushed by elephants on the Alpine Tunnel route is likely legend.
Also, the article concludes by stating the rails over the pass were pulled in 1917. They were actually pulled in 1923 and 1924.
In the December 1943 edition of Railroad Magazine the publication reported the sad occasion of the final Colorado & Southern Railway narrow gauge run. Many of us are familiar with the well-publicized event (Even Life Magazine photographed it). I thought it was interesting to see an article from the time period itself. As the author wrote, on August 25th, 1943 the South Park Line had at last "Gone to Glory."
In the June 1939 issue of Railroad Magazine a Burlington employee from South Dakota wrote an article describing a sad but historic ride he took on the Clear Creek Line. M.L. Hart saw a notice that the Colorado & Southern was going to abandon its narrow gauge line west of Idaho Springs including the Georgetown Loop. He asked and received permission to ride what he called the "Graveyard Run" on January 30th, 1939.
Along the way, riding in the caboose and later a gondola of gravel, he chats with conductor Billy Maas who later pushes a caboose with his bare hands, interacts with famed railroad photographer Richard Kindig, watches the switching at Forks Creek, witnesses construction of Highway 6 in the canyon, and hears the annoyance of a workman in Empire complaining about the railroad's choice to cut the line farther east. Lastly, he takes a trip by car up to Georgetown just two months before the tracks will be torn up.
Billy Westall, a South Park engineer, gave his life to save the passengers on his eastbound train in Platte Canyon. He stayed at his post as it hit a slide in Platte Canyon on August 28, 1898, saving every life on the train. The monument to his sacrifice still stands in the canyon.
Tommy Allen shares Westall's story in the video below. Allen enjoys sharing historical tales through his podcasts and videos entitled "Stories from the Midland." I was quite impressed at his effective storytelling and this video is a good introduction to his other work.
Enjoy!
Kurt
The South Park Line crossed the continental divide on its way to Gunnison, piercing the range with the famed Alpine Tunnel. After it came down the mountainside, it passed through a number of towns including the ill-fated Woodstock, the small town of Quartz, and the relatively-sizeable Pitkin. Beyond Pitkin, the next town was Ohio City at 8563 feet above sea level.
While the town is nowhere near the size of Pitkin, it still has a number of residents.
The following is a great video that goes into great detail about the work to restore the largest rock wall at the Palisades on the way to Alpine Tunnel.
The narrator is Marcus Trusty, founder of CORE (Colorado Off Road Enterprise), a motorized advocacy group. He along with many others has played an important role in seeing the 2016 avalanche damage to the rock wall repaired.
You will see great shots of the wall, of the work, and especially of rock scaling where you can see boulders come crashing down.
At one point Trusty dialogues with one of the stone masons. They discuss artifacts found during the work. Not much was unearthed, but the workers did find some spikes, a piece of rail, and "a train brake." Apparently these were taken to "the Pitkin guard station" to be put on display "up there." Not sure if he meant on display in Pitkin or at the Alpine Tunnel station. They also found "a lot of little nails and dynamite crates."
They also discuss the process of splitting rocks and how the workers today did it very similarly to the construction workers of the 1880s. They surmise that one of the original sources of rock when the railroad was built is at the present intersection of Williams Pass and the railroad grade just above the large rock wall.
One interesting fact was that Williams Pass was never graded very well because it was only intended as a temporary road for construction of the railroad. Is this accurate? Trusty commented that Hancock Pass, on the other hand, was a more regularly used road.
It was encouraging to learn from the video that work was also done to repair some of the other several walls along this stretch in addition to the famous large one.
Some have asked about the issue of drainage with the restoration and their work on that is also discussed.
The narrator estimates that the entire project, that required many different partners, came to about a million dollars.
Later Marcus Trusty goes into great detail about all the various groups and grants that made this work possible. It is almost hard to follow it all, but it is a reminder of just how many organizations and individuals it has taken to make this work happen. It should be sobering to realize that railfans and historical groups could not have pulled this off alone. We are indebted to the many non-railfan groups that finally made this 8-year-project come together.
The video below is put out by a gentlemen involved with a trail organization that has played a role and pushing to get funding for the restoration of the Palisade Rock Wall west of Alpine Tunnel. It is a year old at this point, but he details some of the work being done.
The best parts of the video, though, are the drone shots. There is an epic one of rock scaling above the Rock Wall. You'll see a large boulder being sent down with many crashing results. It gives a good sense of how the avalanche came down in 2016 that broke out the wall (as well as the one that may have come down in 1884 and destroyed Woodstock). In that same shot, as the rock falls down, you get a unique view of the roadbed and Rock Wall from above.
There are additional drone shots of the wall as well as the roadbed that highlight the incredible 19th century engineering of the route.
The good news is that the video is right about most of the work he mentioned. As seen in my previous post, major reconstruction work occurred this summer.
Justin Kerns shared news on the repair work being done to the big Palisade Wall a few miles west of Alpine Tunnel. He posted the text and photos below over on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum and graciously gave me permission to repost it here.
Justin wrote:
An update on the progress at the Palisade Wall. Work commenced on 6/18/2024 and is going smoothly so far (Progress is estimated at 50% complete as of July 24, 2024). The hope is that it will be completed this season before weather shuts things down. For this summer FR839 below the wall is closed as is Williams Pass so there is no way to drive between Hancock and Pitkin. This is necessary during construction for safety reasons.
Someone on the forum asked, "I'm curious if the historic blocks are being retrieved and replaced or are these new blocks for the new work?"
Justin responded: There weren't actually too many stones missing. The old capstones fell over 100 years ago so those were made new in the same quarry area used for the original wall. As many of the stones that were swept down in 2016 as could be recovered reasonably were also re-used with some being newly cut. So it's a mix of original and new but all from the same granite area just up the road a bit. They are also repairing a few other smaller walls as needed along the grade.
Here are some photos of the progress:
