Como Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As far as I can tell the cave in at the Tunnel was
> the same as the Trout Creek wash out story, they
> were operating along both well after both events
> supposedly happened. Both stories seemed to come
> in decades later and I am not sure why.
>

Washouts along Trout Creek ( the one near Buena Vista) where a regular occurrence by 1910. According to the CRA on the South Park C&S had to move a bunch of idle cars (mostly gons) out of Buena Vista in the spring of '11. A survey was done of the washouts since the closure in November of '10 in early June and an estimate of a few hundred dollars to repair the minor washouts that had occurred. No sooner was the report in than a major gully-washer hi the area and the engineer comment that his estimate was probably now out of date. the cars wnet via D&RG to Leadville. There was another huge storm in 1914 which did even more damage.

> The real reason was the line was losing money and
> had no realistic hope of changing, so 3 events
> happened at the same time, Tunnel and south of
> Garos closure, and of course Boreas Pass. The kept
> the St Elmo BV section running but not that
> willingly.

C&S becoming a CB&Q property 1908 & Trumball leaving seems to both have had a lot to do with it, along with C&S losing interest in CM. Little marginal lines in the mountains just weren't something the Hill Lines wanted to fool around with. Or so I've heard.

Hank