Mike Stillwell Wrote:
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> That wasn't Clive's idea..it came from this fellow
> at the Colorado RR Museum. I think his name was
> Richardson...
>
> Mike Stillwell
> Buena Vista, VA.
Mike,
Assuming you are referring to the insurance scam explanation, I had not heard that it came from somebody other than Cussler. Regardless, I think it is faulty for several reasons. First, I am not convinced that the KP was privately insured in those days. I don’t have the facts, but railroads have often been self-insured. But even if the KP was privately insured, I don’t think they would be hustling a locomotive around in the dark of the night to pull the wool over the eyes of the insurance company. That just has too much of a later day cops-and-robbers thriller, petty scam flavor to it to fit the context of 1800s railroading. It sounds like a theory developed by someone who does not relate to railroading, let alone railroading of that early period.
Moreover, I do not think the discrepancy between the fact that the locomotive was documented to have been recovered, and the local residents’ belief that it was not, needs a crackerjack explanation like the insurance scam. In the case of this lost locomotive legend, I think the facts that got passed down were simply incorrect at their origin.
Cussler may have had some egg on his face after organizing elaborate search parties, so he may have been attracted to the need for reason for the false rumor that indicated that everybody had been intentionally hoodwinked right from the start.