This has been done to death and I swore I was going to stop reading this stuff, but as someone who has researched Crested Butte for more than 37 years and will complete a book on it next year I have a bit of vested interest.
I find it interesting that in all the debate about green boilers, NOT ONE good color photo has turned up of any except the two Rocky Club engines. People have claimed to have seen movies, slides, etc. but somehow these never show up. No color photos, no clear D&RGW documentation showing green ever used on a narrow gauge engine other than those two, yet it never ends.
Years ago I spent many, many hours interviewing two D&RGW engineers who started on the narrow gauge around 1915. Frank Wright and Clarence Russell worked out of Gunnison for years. I once gave Frank a copy of the Colorado RR Museum D&RGW locomotive book and asked him to mark the D&RGW engines he remembered runniung or firing. He marked about 2/3s of the D&RG NG engines including one he delivered to the RGS that became their number 42. He marked about 1/4 of the D&RGW standard gauge engines. Frank was fireman on the last run of 318 out of Montrose to Ouray and engineer on the last run of 268 out of Gunnison. I asked him did he ever see a narrow gauge engine with a green boiler and he emphatically said NO. He said there were a couple painted green for some railroad club trips but he never saw them in Gunnison or the west end. Clarence Russell said the same thing. Frank said he ran a number of engines with green boilers on the standard gauge and those were passenger engines or engines used in mixed service.
I am sure this will not make any difference to those who see green in shades of black or who really want a green engine but it is a bit more evidence to me of real history not wishful thinking.
Jerry Day
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2010 06:51PM by Jerry Day.
