A quick update from the Ridgway Railroad Museum: We have completed repairs and upgrades on the rear axle assembly of our recreation of RGS Motor 1 and will begin offering free rides again on Motor 1 around our 1/2 mile operations loop this coming Saturday. Free rides will be available each Saturday from 9 am to noon, as well as guided tours. Last week we moved boxcar 3031 from the old location by the fairgrounds to the new location at 200 N. Railroad street, d0wntown next to the historic depot building. This completes the move of all of our historic railcars.to our permanent site. Because the Ridgway Visitor Center building (where our indoor exhibits have been located for the last 20 years) is not open this year due to the pandemic, we have begun removing the exhibits for temporary storage. We will move the best of these exhibits into a room in the depot building (which is now occupied by the Ouray County Ranch History Museum) starting November 1st so they will be available for viewing next season. The agreement with the landowners (we have a 50-year lease from them) is that we will fully move into the depot when the Ranch museum moves into a new building they will construct on the Ridgway museum campus, which was originally projected at 3 - 5 years from their temporary occupancy of the depot, but may be several years from now, depending on their fundraising. This week we will complete construction of a small garage on site to house the recreation of the RGS Model T track inspection car and move it on site soon.
We still plan to present Ouray County Railroad Days September 23 - 26 with our usual rides on Motor 1, the Model T inspection car, and Galloping Goose 4 from Telluride, along with guided hikes along the Silverton Railroad route on Red Mountain, Don Paulson's model railroad layout, a history lecture, and other events.
