Re: Black Hills Central D&RGW NG equipment

The question of why the CB&Q Keystone spur was third-railed to accommodate narrow gauge equipment, and why the railroad eventually went to standard gauge, is complex. In a nutshell, Bill Heckman had his heart set on narrow gauge. (I think that narrow gauge, to him, was what “old time” railroading was all about.) He tried to get the Silverton Branch. When that didn’t work, he had to look elsewhere, but he didn’t have the money to build a new narrow gauge railroad from scratch nor the expertise to run the trains himself. Putting down a third rail on an existing railroad, and using their (Union) crews to operate Heckman’s trains, was a good option. The CB&Q agreed to allow him to do this on the Keystone Spur, which came off the branch line to Deadwood and had very little traffic. The money wasn’t there to third rail the entire 10 miles from Hill City to Keystone, so Heckman only put down five miles of third rail from Hill City to an old sawmill site in the woods that he called “Oblivion” (because the BHC was bringing narrow gauge steam “Back from Oblivion.” Get it?).

The Black Hills Central at first ran only narrow gauge and only between Hill City and Oblivion. But there was a problem, and that was the bulk of the tourist traffic was in Keystone, gateway to Mount Rushmore. The railroad needed to tap into this tourist base in order to survive, so in 1962 Heckman and Elliott Donnelley brought in a standard-gauge 2-6-2 and three tourist coaches from the C&NW, and began running a standard gauge “division” between Keystone and Oblivion that connected with the narrow gauge. It was an unnecessarily complicated operation; if you only wanted to ride one division, it was simple, but if you wanted to ride the entire line a transfer between trains was required at Oblivion, and the ticketing problems and frustrations with this ultimately proved unworkable. In 1964 the WP&YR 69 developed mechanical problems, and Oregon Lumber Shay 7 was put into service for a few weeks until the end of the season. The Shay wasn’t in great shape, either, and it provided and excuse to end the narrow gauge operation for the 1965 season.
Elliott Donnelly wasn’t happy with this, and eventually took both of the narrow gauge engines he had brought to Hill City (the Shay and United Fruit Co. 2-6-0 No. 1) to Hesston, Indiana.

Incidentally, the three way stub switch at Oblivion came from the East Broad Top.

Three photos are attached. The first is of WP&YR 69 at Hill City in 1959 on the narrow gauge stub track that was built next to the depot. The view is looking north towards Deadwood; the Deadwood branch line (third railed just in front of the depot) is in the foreground.

The second photo dates from 1963, and shows the standard gauge train waiting at Oblivion while the narrow gauge train heads in on the wye.

The third photo is C&S coach 76 and mail-baggage 13 on standard gauge trucks, along with Great Western caboose 1004, with the train from the made-for-TV-movie "Orphan Train.”


Jeff Terry






Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2011 11:49AM by Jeff Terry.