Re: D&RGW 319 Question

Not sure about the bells, my understanding is that after the "wreck" the D&RGW towed the engines to Durango and stripped them of anything useful and/or easy to remove, then shipped them East to scrap.

What I've always wondered is just how truly damaged they were. Staged train wrecks at County Fairs and such were a fairly common thing back in the late 19th century and i do know of cases where engines written off for this purpose wound up back in service. So, wonder if 319 or 345 were in restorable condition after this? From the pictures, I'd guess it wouldn't have been too hard to do a cosmetic job on them if only somebody had wanted them for display...

hank