John:
I am working on a book on the Crested Butte branch.
The D&RGW stopping using a switcher at Crested Butte early in 1930. Prior to that, the Crested Butte switcher made the runs on the Floresta branch and to the three mines on the Anthracite branch north of town.
This prompted many complaints from the locals as the regular train was a mixed train and all the switching required at the local mines often made the train late getting back to Gunnison and they would miss the connection with the passenger train to Salida.
This item appeared in a local paper that year.
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Crested Butte News
RIO GRANDE GOES BACK TO "THE GOOD OLD DAYS"
The D&RGW railroad company appears to be going back to the olden days before locomotives were in use. One day last week the CF&I Big Mine ran short of empty coal cars and of course, there being no switch engine at the local yards, and the regular passenger train hadn't arrived from Gunnison, there seemed noth¬ing to do but use horses to pull the empty coal cars from the railroad depot to the mine tipple. This was done, horses being substituted for an engine, thereby saving the mine from closing down that day. We are wondering if the railroad company wants to go back to the horsepower era.
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The towns of Gunnison and Crested Butte appealed to the PUC and demanded that the switch engine be put back on. Rather than do that, the D&RGW changed the schedule of the train so that it had a two hour layover at Crested Butte. The D&RGW said that would give them time to do the switching. But the complaints continued and the PUC ordered the D&RGW to stop the practice of switching at the Buckley Mine south of town before brining the mixed train into town. Local people said they had to sit for half an hour at times while the mine was switched. The PUC also ordered the D&RGW to stop making the passengers walk down to the water tank (about half a mile from the depot) to board the train.
A few times after 1930, the D&RGW would temporaraily put on a switcher at Crested Butte, but in 1933, they replaced the mixed train with a bus and could take all the time they needed to switch the mines.
During the last years of the switcher at Crested Butte, the engine was often number 317, but any of the small 2-8-0s could get the duty.
