Re: Why didn't the D&RGW scrap the remaining cars on the Silverton Branch?

Cars were marked for rentention--"CNM" was stenciled on the cars saved for the states' purchase, and a similar stencil was used on the Silverton stuff to let the scrapper know which belonged to them. I recall talking to the D&RGW Roadmaster in Durango at the time in 1970, Jack Rentfrow, and he said what Denver sent down to him for a retention list was not satisfactory, so he set about stashing equipment that he thought he would need later on. The cars in Durango that were scrapped were set out below the south yard in a long line and Jack wouldn't let the scrapper up into the main yard area. I was there the day Woody and a couple of others switched some of those cars out using the diesel, #50. Included was one of the Western Union cars, several box cars that had been set on fire by vandals, etc. I recall watching the scrappers one day torching parts off a drop bottom gondola. Jack was a company man, but he also cared deeply for the Silverton branch.

When Jack first came on in about 1940 or 41, he took a section car to tour the branch, reached the Silverton depot, saw that the track continued, and kept on going. After a while, the track was in such bad condition that he couldn't keep on going, so he returned to the depot and rushed in to tell the agent, who had seen him go by the first time, that they had to get the tracks repaired before the next train or else there would be a derailment. The agent had to break the news to Jack that about a thousand feet past the depot the ownership changed to that of the Silverton Northern and Jack was on another railroad. That became one of his favorite stories. I don't know how some of the equipment in Silverton escaped scrapping other than those outfit cars had been sitting on the Elk Park siding for some time before they were brought into town--and at the time Bell took his photos, Sundance Publications was in the depot as can be seen by the 3-phase electrical service line going into the depot that Sundance had installed for their Heidelberg press.

Fritz