davidtltc Wrote:
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> Looking at these photo's and contemplating how
> these change took place, amazes me about the
> quality of workmanship the Denver and Rio Grande
> employed They truly weren't your run of the mill
> personnel, sidelining locomotives after a flue
> extension expired, they were always trying to
> make what they were dealing with better quality,
> like a locomotive engineer trying to get the best
> steaming quality out of a chunk of coal. The D&RG
> shop crews were always thinking above and beyond
> for their company, It makes more sense now to me,
> how they could rebuild a standard gauge locomotive
> into a narrow gauge locomotive, their ingenuity
> was was top of the line, I sure wish I knew more
> about those people and what their planning and
> thought processes werelike to motivated them in
> doing such great and amazing things for the
> greater good and success of the D&RG.
The D&RG shop personnel were a lot more typical for their era than you might expect. Having a well-equipped machine shop and trained shop crew was almost a requirement for operating a major railroad. Many railroads in that era built or rebuilt their own locomotives. Nearly all railroads modified them as necessary. Look at the constant experimentation and modification roads like the B&O made, or the huge amount of new-build construction done by the PRR as exceptional cases for the industry during the steam era. Even the none-too-large, local (to me) Wheeling & Lake Erie built some dozens of its own engines. At the other end of the scale, you have cases like the North Pacific Coast narrow gauge railroad--just a generic little short line--building an experimental cab-forward engine with a water tube boiler. Contrast that to today when a decades-old diesel might look practically the same as it did when it was newly-built--it was a different era.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2021 12:27PM by James.
