The photo of the Romley depot is on pg 82 of Mal Ferrells The South Park Line. Mal must have waved his magic wand over that image as the Harp clearly shows "18 UP RY 83" just like the Mac Poor photo at Alpine.
I'm going out on a limb here and saying there probably never was a DSP&PRR harpswitchstand at Alpine Tunnel.
Fred Oster Wrote:
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> the switch stand at crrm has a home made target
> that is not full size account using left over
> sheet metal that was just a little too small. the
> cast base has no uprr or dsp&prr marking a fact i
> was very disapointed by when rwr and i drug it out
> of the willows in 1966. it was hidden by him in
> the early 50s when there was no way to drive to
> alpine tunnel. the stand was for the turntable
> track put in after engine house fire. there was no
> lever or target the current lever is from a broken
> d&rg stand at the museum.
I have seen that one at the museum and was unimpressed also because I had seen pictures of the wonderful castings with raised letters in books that I didn't get to see one in real life.
Mac Poor's pic in Mineral Belt V2 is of another "18 UP RY 83" stand minus lever and rods at the Eastern end of the passing track at Alpine. There is also a Dick Kindig photo taken June 1940 showing the "1883" harpstand in the same location, the track is still in place there at that time, another photo shows a standard C&S style rotary swstand at the western end of the passing track still in place. There are later 1950's photo's in Dow Helmer's Historic Alpine Tunnel showing the rails gone and roadbed bulldozed.
Looking back over other clear harp locations the UP1883 style is present at Pitkin, Atlantic, Rarus Warrior siding, Romley and Garos. The furtherest West the DSP&P harp that I can see clearly shown was at Como. The UP1883 harps have a "bowtie" pivot point for the Lever also the arch has raised "ears" for the locking staple. The DSP&PRR harp on the other hand has a flattop arch with notches for the locking staple and a horizontal channel type pivot point for the lever.
Interestingly there was a "18 UP RR 77" Harp at Idaho Springs shown in Mal's C&S NG book. Thankfully Richard B Jackson made a point of photographing the swstands close-up for us to see. I have spoken with the Ranger up at Alpine Tunnel on one of my visits there, he was so proud of that Reproduction. I hope this doesn't make him want to have cast a "18 UP RY 83" Harp.
Chris
in New Zealand
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2013 05:58AM by Chris Walker.
