Como Wrote:
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> I am not sure exactly when the focus switched,
> certainly the original plan was to go 150 miles to
> the Arkansas Valley, bottom of Trout Creek, that
> was the deal with the Construction Company.
>
> I assume the decision to bypass Fairplay an
> original way point may have been down to the need
> to speed things up. Fairplay was not happy about
> that.
>
> I do not think they planned to go over to the Blue
> River from Como originally so perhaps the contour
> around Park Gulch was on the basis we can always
> come back and straighten the line out later.
Still a block from my books so from memory:
1) original (1873-74) plan was to go directly to Fairplay and then on to the San Luis.
2) In '78 or '79 Evans & Co., apparently covering all bets, incorporated new subsidaries for both the route up the Arkansas Valley from the Buena Vista area and the one via the Blue River/Tenmile creek route.
3) a short branch was built a few miles north from Como to a (not very successful) coal mine called Lechner(sp?), when the branch to Breckinridge ( approved just before the UP takeover in 1880, built 1881-82) was began it used the a mile or two of this for it's entry to Como.
4) When the UP had to build it's own line to Leadville (1883-84) it was decided to go from a point on the extension of the Breckinridge (to Keystone) branch.
So the line that wound up being the main to Leadville was indeed never intended for such use.
This leaves only two questions:
1) Why on Earth go to Leadville that way instead of the easier route from Buena Vista?
2) Why did nobody ever cough up the $$$ to simplify the Como trackage and eliminate the back-up move to the wye east of town on each trip?
The World May Never Know.
Hank
