The D&RGW took several machines from the Alamosa backshop over to Durango and set them up to handle work on the Silverton Branch engines. 3 (or more?) stalls in the Durango roundhouse were turned into machine shop space, leaving 3 stalls for the locomotives. I believe one stall was equipped with a drop pit to handle un-wheeling locomotives. The Alamosa wheel lathe did not make the cut. When tires needed turning in Durango, the wheels were pulled out from under the engines, and sent to Burnham for turning.
After the D&RGW got their pic of the machinery, the States of CO and NM got their pick of back shop machinery. Quite a bit of the machinery was sent to the C&TS. Some made it to Chama, some was stored in "Ft. Knox" over in Antonito. After some of the machinery made it to Chama, investigation showed it to be too worn out to be of use and it was eventually discarded.
Some of the backshop equipment was just to big to deal with and ended up being scrapped. In JBW's shot of the shop boiler you can see some BIG piece of machinery in the back ground. I'm sure the machinery experts out there can tell us what it is.
A line item in the inventory of items purchased from the D&RGW in 1970 includes "50 tons of spare parts".
To say the D&RGW ran the Silverton Branch into the ground in the 1970's is slam on the guys who kept it going for a few years longer, with little or no support from Denver..... Trying to run a 2 train, 7 day a week program with only 2 locomotives would be unthinkable today.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2017 09:34AM by Earl.