Re: Como Colorado September 2, 2017 - part II

a few more from Saturday....


Jeff Ramsey works at trimming the rails on the end of the track into Stall No. 2 so that they will clear the turntable. While "Klondike Kate" was steaming up, the track into stall No. 2 (built in 2006 to house DSP&P boxcar 608) was reassembled so that the handcar and speeder could be put in the roundhouse for the winter.


Her work for the day completed, No. 4 rests on the turntable at 4:35PM Saturday afternoon.. Between a little after Noon and 4PM, no. 4 and its train (gondola 1020) made many roundtrips between the roundhouse and the depot. The last run was a "freight extra" from the roundhouse to C&S 13121 (the boxcar body near the depot) to pick up all of the locomotive parts that had been stored in the boxcar for the past few weeks and bring them to the roundhouse. After that, gondola 1020 was returned to its winter quarters at the present end of the mainline to Buena Vista.


While No. 4 was cooling off on the turntable, volunteers (including DSP&PHS President Bob Schoppe in hardhat) were at work leveling that track inside stall No. 5 so that No. 4 would not have to list slightly to port all winter.


Jeff Ramsey checks the side to side level of the track in stall No. 5

The plan was to kill the fire and then drain the tender into the turntable pit while the boiler pressure dropped to 0, then two washout plugs would be removed and the boiler drained, with the residual heat working to dry out the boiler interior. This part all went AOK and by about 7PM it was time to move No. 4 from the turntable into the roundhouse. On hand we had the tractor that had pulled No. 4 off of the semi trailer in August, the car mover and prybar that were used to move the locomotive out of the roundhouse that morning and a whole bunch of people to push. How hard could it be?

Turns out it was a major PITA (perhaps Kate, remembering the last time she was "drained and put away for the winter" in 1913 and not retrieved from the KMRy engine house until 1942, was a bit reluctant to play that game again. Anyway, the short space between the roundhouse and the turntable meant that the tractor was always pulling at a slight angle, thus moving the turntable more than the locomotive and the rail on the lead track was sitting about 3/8" above the rail on the turntable. While a locomotive under power can runover such a height difference with ease, getting it to do so manually is another story. We were able to muscle the tender and trailing truck wheels onto the lead track but the rear drive wheel stopped us cold at about 9pm. The issue was resolved in about 20 minutes on Sunday with a winch set at the end of the track in the roundhouse. Railroading is always an adventure.

Jason Midyette