Re: Cumbres Section House- questions and modeling content

The D&RG used several section house floor plans of the type at Cumbres. All were a basic "T" building. The differences were in the size (square footage) of the section house. I believe there were three sizes and the Cumbres model, from what I can tell, is the medium size. The floor plan could also be "flipped", depending on where the section house was to be built. These era section house buildings were actually "kit built" structures, with the full-dimension lumber pre-cut at the sawmill. In the early days, the sawmill primarily used was at Cañon City and that is probably where the lumber for the Cumbres and Sublette section houses was sourced. Many years ago, when the Friends were restoring the roof of the section house at Sublette, I saw some evidence of the structural lumber having been numbered--likely to guide the carpenters in how to assemble the building. Amazingly, the roof supports on the Sublette section house--110 years old when we were working on it--were still seeping pitch.

It might be worthwhile to nose around at the Colorado Railroad Museum archives--they might still have copies of the D&RG "standard plans" for section houses, depots, etc. No doubt that most of the section houses saw lean-to additions and other modifications over the years.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2016 06:45AM by Wade Hall.