Oscar Perschbacher's adventures on the C&S

Conductor Oscar Perschbacher had the sad honor of giving the final C&S narrow gauge train order to the engineer of No. 76 in Leadville. 

Boarding house Oscar helped build (behind the station)

Perschbacher had a long career with the C&S. While he later served as a brakeman and eventually a
conductor,  he began as a carpenter repairing bridges. He later moved to work at Alpine Tunnel around 1906. There he helped repair the tunnel and construct the two-story boarding house after fire had destroyed the facilities there.

A testimony to Perschbacher and his fellow crewmen's work: the boarding house stood for roughly 50 years after abandonment before its collapse sometime in the 1960s.

Remains of the boarding house today

Working in Alpine Tunnel

Inside Alpine Tunnel 1948 - Ed Haley photo from the Feb. 1991 Rocky Mountain Rail Report

Not long after his arrival at Alpine, a crew of men including Oscar went to work repairing some tunnel timbers. Oscar and some others perched themselves on scaffolding to insert the keyblock at the top of one of the arches. Nearby, others dug out rock or dirt debris (possibly from the ceiling work being done). It seems the scaffolding had been perched on or around some of this debris so that the digging inadvertently caused the scaffold to collapse. As he fell, Oscar saw the ceiling collapse as well. This came down on top of Oscar and the other workmen. He recalls the fear that the torches (kerosene torches drilled into the timbers) would go out and plunge them all into darkness. 

Thankfully, others dug them out. Oscar credits 'Tuck' Simpson's help in getting dug out.

Train Consists on Alpine and Boreas Passes

Eastbound train leaving Pitkin (H.L. Curtiss Photo)

Oscar remarked that trains running over both Alpine and Boreas Pass had four engines. Two led up front while two pushed from the rear, just in front of the caboose. Due to the ice in winter on these lines, it was hard to get a stopped train moving again without at least four locomotives.

Ignoring the Rules for Georgetown Loop

The Loop High Bridge today

Procedures were different on the Clear Creek division of the C&S. One time Oscar and some other trainmen from the South Park division were called over to the Clear Creek Line during tourist season. He recalls being conductor on a train “racing” a doubleheader over the Georgetown Loop’s high bridge. He didn't know that the railroad had concerns about how much weight could be put on the bridge. Someone in the coach asked if he knew that they were supposed to take one engine over the bridge and then bring the rest of the train with the second engine. Oscar simply replied “No. I don’t, but it’s too late now!”

Speeding Through the South Park

Relaid track in the South Park today

Speaking of speed, Oscar marveled at the speed of the fast freights from Denver to Leadville. As a brakeman he rode on top with his brake club in hand and enjoyed what he called a “wild ride.” Sometimes that speed came to trouble, particularly in the South Park at night. It was hard to see what was on the tracks and a few times his trains hit cattle. 

Dips in the track due to a slight washout were another issue. The daring engineers, whom Oscar called “hogheads,” seemed to fire through them at speed to get over the inverted humps. He commented, “They killed a lot of good men that way.”

The adventures on the C&S never cease to amaze a flatlander like me!

Source:

The stories above were gleaned from an article in the Summer 1974 Slim Gauge News entitled "Recollections with Oscar" by Elwood Bell