Early Georgetown Loop / CHS car acquisiton trivia

Back when the D&RGW was abandoning the line from Alamosa to Durango and working to sell what became the C&TS to the states, the Colorado Historical Society worked to get an example of a locomotive and each type of freight car donated to them, with a potential eye towards using them on the then future idea of rebuilding the Georgetown Loop. The CHS was successful and the Rio Grande gave them locomotive No. 491, along with flatcar 6302, drop bottom gondola 824, long reefer 153, boxcar 3582, stock car 5702 and caboose 0586. Astute observers will note that the CHS did pretty good at picking out a "type set" of all the different freight cars in service on the Rio Grande at the end, save for a high side or non drop bottom gondola. I have always assumed that the trivialities of the different types of gondolas were neither here nor there to the CHS at the time, so they asked for and received a "gondola".

While locomotive 491 stayed in the Alamosa roundhouse for years, the cars were pretty quickly moved to Denver and stored at the Federal Center. By late 1972, the cars began to be moved to Silver Plume and by Thanksgiving of that year "two narrow gauge cars had been moved into what would become the depot grounds in Silver Plume" (Gary Morgan "The Georgetown Loop"). Photos show those cars to be D&RGW flatcar 6302 and drop bottom gondola 824. Morgan's book goes on to say that in late 1972, future Loop operator Lindsey Ashby and his partners had purchased four cars (rail and tie flatcar, a "trussrod flatcar", a stock car and a boxcar) from the scrapper in Chama, New Mexico and had "picked out 10 more cars".

Among the 10 "other cars" were 2 or 3 high side gondolas that had been converted to pipe gondolas. The question as to weather it was 2 or 3 becomes important in a moment, but leaving that aside, three "pipe gons" were in Silver Plume by 1974; 1036, 1163 and 1191. Photos of early (1975-1976) Georgetown Loop passenger trains show that the three pipe gons were among, if not the, first of the former freight cars to be converted into passenger cars for the new railroad.



Looking through some early photos of the Loop, (taken by Ron Peck) seems to raise the possibility that the CHS did in fact acquire a "high side" gondola from the D&RGW, and if so that it was converted into a passenger car.

Looking at the photos;


Early spring 1973, the first two cars to arrive, D&RGW 6302 (out of sight in front) and 824 on a short section of track in Silver Plume. At the time, these were the only cars in Silver Plume.


By September of 1973, the track has been extended and the first two cars (6302 and 824) have been joined by the rest of the CHS's cars (stock 5702, box 3582, reefer 153 and caboose 0586) along with a seemingly errant high side / pipe gondola.


Just behind the CHS's cars, but not coupled to them, are a group of 5 cars (flatcar, high side gondola, pipe gondola and drop bottom gons 767 and 768) that belonged to Ashby.

The photos seem to imply that the CHS had moved all of its cars to Silver Plume first, then Ashby's cars began to show up and that the two groups of cars were separated. (given that there is but one track and that the only point for a truck to access it to unload a car is at what is the far end of the track in these photos - ie the end by the road - I think that it is logical to conclude that the cars arrived in Silver Plume in the order that they are on the track) As such, the question; is the pipe gon amongst the CHS's cars one of Ashby's that showed up early or was it the CHS's and then fairly quickly put to use as a passenger car? (really matters not either way, just would be interesting to know)

Jason Midyette



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2019 07:01PM by Jason Midyette.