D&RGW NG boxcar and gondola detail photos

I thought I'd share some detail photos of a D&RGW narrow gauge boxcar and gondola that I took in April 1981. At the time they were located at the Lagoon amusement park in Farmington, Utah. They were later moved to Ogden Union Station in Ogden, Utah, and they were burned in March 2006 when an adjacent building caught fire and was allowed to burn.

[donstrack.smugmug.com]

They were originally donated by D&RGW in the mid to late 1950s to Horace Sorensen's Pioneer Village on Conner Street in Salt Lake City. They may have been D&RGW's contibution to Sons of Utah Pioneers efforts from all railroads, when in 1959 UP and SP each donated a 2-8-0 that were displayed at Corinne and later moved to Heber. The D&RGW equipment may have been small enough to be moved to Pioneer Village, whereas the larger UP and SP equipment had to find a home next to real railroad tracks.

In 1956 Sorensen donated his Pioneer Village collection to Sons of Utah Pioneers, and in 1975 the entire Pioneer Village collection was sold to Lagoon for $275,000. I don't know when the two narrow gauge cars, and the short eight-wheel caboose that was part of the collection, were moved to Ogden. That may have been in 1989 when the small steam railroad was removed to make way for a water park called Lagoon-A-Beach, which itself replaced a 50-year-old "Million Gallon" swimming pool.

Is there any information on when certain D&RGW cars, by car number, were donated; specifically D&RGW boxcar 3576, gondola 1051, and caboose 0573.

[Edit: updated link to photo album.]

Don Strack



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2017 09:09AM by donstrack.