Re: Rio Grande Southern Number 19 Tender

drgwk37 Wrote:
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> Jerry474 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Rio Grande Southern No. 19 ran away down
> Keystone
> > Hill on January 30, 1907. Her tender wreckage
> is
> > still there.

> Amazing this stuff is still around!! Thanks for
> the pics Jerry.

I was amazed the first time I saw it back in the mid-70's(prior to xmas of '75, I got "Silver San Juan" that year). One of those times I talked my Dad into going off the beaten track. The road from Ophir was much steeper then and very rocky. Dad was afraid we were going to lose a tire on the old Merc. I was bouncing from side-to-side in the back seat, trying to spot stuff, and saw the tender which I had no knowledge of prior to that. I got Dad to stop and walked up to look at it. I could read #19 on it and I could tell it was from an earlier, smaller, engine but that was about it. I was over the moon! Then we stopped at Illium and Mom and I hiked up the grade (no road on it then) to Vance Jct. IIRC, we accessed the grade from a short stub road which crossed the Lake Fork of the San Miguel on one of the legs of the old wye at Illium. All in all, a great day. Somewhere I may still have pictures I took that day with my sister's old camera-used 127 film, had to special order it in even back then. If I can find them then someday, when I can afford a scanner, I may try posting some here.

Boy, things have changed around there since then! I miss the Colorado I was in love with back then.
hank