Re: "Dark" places on the ng - Piedmont on the Ouray branch

Re timrods comment about Piedmont - Gordon Chappell's description of the Ouray branch construction south of Ridgway is a bit confusing and possibly open to doubt. The Ouray branch had a ruling grade not exceeding 1.1 percent for the first 28.6 miles from Montrose to Piedmont. Piedmont was 10.46 miles from Cow Creek and 3.01 miles from Ridgway. At Piedmont the ruling grade increased to 2.2 percent and the railroad ran for the next 4 miles along a shelf cut into the red rock cliffs to the trestle crossing Corbett Creek, usually called the Mill Trestle. According to Gordon Chappell a gravity fed water tank was built 4 miles south of Piedmont, which would place it at the Corbett Creek bridge and the first side stream on the west side of the valley since Dallas. I suppose it is possible that a water tank was located here in very early times even though it is just 3 miles further to Ouray. Corbett Creek is notorious for severe flooding and the creek periodically washes out the road segment that bypasses the dismantled Mill Trestle (most of the current county road 7 uses the very scenic cliff-running railroad grade), so any water tank may have been washed out or replaced by the Wakanah Mill spur at that location. The attached track chart does not show a tank at Piedmont, mp 380.1 or at mp 384.