it's easy to scorn the people back then but shat would you have saved them for? Not operation on the RGS lines. According to RWR there was an active campaign in San Miguel County (Dallas divide to Lizard Head + Telluride Br) to get the RGS scrapped ASAP. Seems they thought it would lead to better highways if they had no RR. (NGN #21 January 1952.) the Mayor of Dolores threatened legal action against anyone trying to preserve the RGs in his town(can't find the cite.) All of the counties were hot for the back taxes they expected to recieve from the scrapping.
D&RGW had 5 other k-27's (452-454, 463, 464)(456 scrapped spring of '52) & 3 k-28's to cover the Silverton, which was still running 3 days/week and expected to be abnd soon. anybody planning to start a tourist line over Marshall Pass (abnd paperwork filed Sep of '52) or buy the Silverton had a wide range of engines to choose from at this time. an almost nobody thought tourist trains were a viable idea. Remember, the big boom on the Silverton was just starting in '52-'54.
So the best one could have hoped for 455 or 461 would have been to see them stuffed & mounted somewhere but the people along the RGS with such ideas went for Geese (cheaper, more iconic) and other towns were after the older, quainter engines (268, 278, 315 for ex.) 319 & 345 had gone begging for a home for a couple of years before the movie crash. RWR stepped in to save RGS 42 (last c-17) but that was all he could afford. Heck, in the late 30's C&S couldn't GIVE #6 away, nobody wanted it!
Lack of foresight maybe, but I can recall from the 60's that the prevailing attitude in SW Colorado was that the only reason people rode the Silverton was because it was "the last" and that even it was on borrowed time. I'd be amazed if somebody had bucked all that Conventional Wisdom in '51-'53!
hank
