Pretty good track?

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the ng. mainline was badly neglected by the DRGW and was in bad shape. But this does not fit with my recollections from the early 60's, but I was more interested in chasing steam engines than in inspecting track. I do remember the Silverton branch being pretty rough, but not the mainline between Durango and Antonito, or the Farmington branch.

My impression from back then was that while weed intrusion was a growing problem (excuse the pun), the surface and line was pretty good. In the pix you don't see a lot of low joints, and I don't remember equipment rocking down the track. Long trains seemed to operate at traditional speeds with few derailments. Pulled drawbars due to the old wooden equipment seemed to be the bigger problem

As has been pointed out, the norm back then was for the regular section crews to continually replace a few ties at a time, not the kind of system gang production program that is common these days.

Tie ends were visible, but that apparently is normal practice for "native earth" ballast, since it promotes drainage. One MOW guru once told me that the three prerequisites for good track are drainage, drainage and drainage.

I wonder if in the historical archives there is any professional discussion of the condition of the track post WWII.

JBWX



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2015 01:58PM by John West.