It would be nice if someone would put together a CRRM history with photos. So much has gone on at the location over the years. If anything I mostly remember the warm kitchen in the farm house on cold winter days and Uncle Bob's varigated selection of lunches served on occasion. He did make some pretty good chile but tube steaks and even Spam appeared. Uncle Bob was quite taken with a bread from a Golden bakery which probably gave him long life but I thought was derived from military hardtack. He always enjoyed going into Golden for dinner and everyone knew him there.
Dirk was right about the CRRM being next to nowhere in 1958. Golden was a very small town. Dirk and I once took the bus from Denver to Golden and walked the C&S track to the CRRM with a stop at the Rockwood shelter which was pretty intact then. Dirk used to ride his bicycle from Denver to the CRRM, probably a better experience than walking from Golden. A few of us sort of learned how to drive at the CRRM thanks to Bob giving us the key to move this or that around the place with the old gray Ford tractor that couldn't be driven above 8-ish mph due to worn out steering.
Rob Plummer and I used to develop film and print pictures in a basement room next to the stairs in the main CRRM building. A few of Bob's but everything else too. Bob had a huge enlarger down there.
Chris Ahrens was there before me and influenced me to take a look. Somehow the idea of doing things with trains and fixing them up seemed a good thing. Somehow crawling into fireboxes and along boiler flues gave us purpose and when the 346 eventually steamed it was a great moement. I cannot imagine a better experience for a young man than being around the early days of the CRRM. Uncle Bob was a great mentor for life direction and had a great perspetive on life.
