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C&N 30 / RGS 74 / C&S 74 MOVES TO GOLDEN
Posted Monday, April 30 2012 at 1652 h MDT
On Thursday, 19 Apr 2012, two pieces of equipment arrived at the Colorado Railroad Museum - C&N/DB&W/C&S/RGS 30/74 and D&RGW 04990 - where they will remain on "indefinite loan". Both were formerly exhibited in a park in Boulder, and each took its own long and difficult path to get to its current place.
Colorado & Northwestern #30, otherwise later known as Denver Boulder & Western #30, Colorado & Southern 74 or Rio Grande Southern 74, is a 1898 Brooks narrow gauge 2-8-0 that had been sitting on display in a Boulder park until 2004. At that point, it was leased to the Colorado Historical Society for a decade as part of the Georgetown Loop disaster, with the agreement that it would either operate on the Loop or it would be returned, fully cosmetically restored. The Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado) quickly figured out that 30/74 was not restorable for the price tag they wanted (a paltry $250k), and so it was sent off for cosmetic restoration. After that, nobody saw it for years as it was being restored.
The other piece of equipment in the park - a rare Rio Grande narrow gauge long caboose, DRGW 04990 - was torched on 2 Jul 2007. Fortunately they [caught those idiots], but they escaped any appropriately harsh punishment. (Come on, judges and juries, this is the West, and ropes and trees remain cheap.) The charred remains were quickly stabilized and and then painstakingly restored by the Boulder Country Railway Historical Society over the last few years at their site near Valmont.
Hopefully they'll both remain in good hands at CRRM for a long, long time to come. Photos of their arrival at CRRM can be found on NGDF [here], [here], and [here].
Update (5/2 - 0945h):Thanks to Steve Forney for pointing out that while I meant Brooks, I typed Baldwin. 30/74 is indeed a Brooks. - NDHolmes
GOOSEFEST 2012 "VIP" PASS ANNOUNCED
Posted Monday, April 30 2012 at 1605 h MDT
The Colorado RR Museum has announced a "VIP" pass for this summer's Goosefest. Given that this will be the first time that all six authentic RGS motors (and the excellent recreation of RGS 1) have been together in six decades, they're trying to do some unique things. The "VIP" pass will include dinner on Friday and Saturday nights, along with a night shoot of the Geese on Friday and an early morning shoot (0630h) on Sunday, cab rides in the Geese, as well as admission, a copy of the CRRM's latest Goose book "Tin Feathers, Wooden Trestles & Iron Men", and a bag of various schwag. The price is a rather steep $250, but consider that the Geese are unlikely to be all together again for the forseeable future and it's going to the good cause of making it happen this one time.
I'm a little slow posting this, and they may all be sold by this point. I got mine on Friday, and I want to say they had sold about half of the 40 available. - NDHolmes
DSP&P LINK & PIN DRAFT GEAR RECOVERED
Posted Monday, April 30 2012 at 1558 h MDT
n Friday, 27 Apr 2012, an old Denver, South Park & Pacific link & pin coupler draft gear was recovered from the South Platte below the Strontia Springs dam. These were the earliest couplers used on the narrow gauge, and while finding the oval iron links and occasionally the pins is not entirely uncommon, an entire draft box is extremely uncommon. Given that the road up to the dam is the old DSP&P right of way up the canyon, the hardware almost certainly landed in the river as part of a long forgotten derailment. The artifact would date from 1878 - when the DSP&P began running through the canyon - to at latest 1901-1906, when the US Government mandated the conversion to MCB/Janney knuckle couplers.
Thanks to the efforts of Norm Acker and Bob Schoppe (president of the DSP&P Historical Society), along with Denver Water which controls this part of the canyon, the draft gear and one of its side plates was recovered. It was then taken to its new home over in Como, where it will eventually be displayed with other historic remnants of the DSP&P in the Como Depot museum.
Norm's posted a few pictures of the recovery [here]. - NDHolmes
SECOND "SILVER VISTA" ARRIVES ON D&S TOMORROW
Posted Sunday, April 8 2012 at 2220 h MDT
The Tall Timbers Resort / Soaring Tree Top Adventures folks have several premium cars on the Durango & Silverton already for hauling their patrons from Durango to their spur at Tall Timber, but for the last couple years there's been talk that they'd build their own copy of Silver Vista to go with their set. Well, it's finally happened - per a [post on NGDF today], the new narrow gauge dome car will be delivered to the D&S tomorrow. Painted in crimson like the rest of the premium cars and apparently featuring upgrades over the rebuilt SV, the new car will carry the name "Knight Sky".
(Too bad, really, I thought "Crimson Vista" had a nice ring to it. Oh well, I'm not paying to have it built, so I guess I don't get to name it. *smirk*) - NDHolmes
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