Re: D&RGW Outfit Cars

Outfit car 04036 on Kendall Mountain Road is likely the last remaining example of a 27'-6" car from the 4000-4099 series. Its ancestry is linked to a groupd of 24' boxcars that were built by the D&RG from 1878 to 1883. Beginning in the mid-1880s, the D&RG instituted a program to rebuild bad order 24' boxcars into 27'-6" cars and furnish them with stronger 20-ton trucks. In the early 1900s, several boxcars from this series were assigned to non-revenue service, including 4036. By the early early 1960s, 04036 was spurred out near the Silverton depot. In 1965, a local mining interest acquired the car (minus the trucks) and removed it from the property. The car body was intended to be used as a shed at a mine in Kedall Gulch, well above timberline. For some unknown reason the car was abandoned alongside the road where it sits today. Exposure to sub-alpine conditions and vandalism have adversely affected this old relic, and its future is uncertain.