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RGS Story, The Rio Grande Southern Vol I (1) Over the Bridges Ridgway -Telluride
The RGS Story Vol 1 Over the Bridges-Ridgway to Telluride by Russ Coleman
Hard Cover SIGNED BY Coleman and McCoy #1231 Has plstic covering
416 pages indexed
Copyright 1990
CONTENTS
Route Map of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad 6
Preface and Acknowledgments 7
List of Detailed Maps 12
Lists of Bridges - Drawings and Photographs of Bridges 13
Introduction 14
The Early Years of the Rio Grande Southern 19
The First District - Ridgway to Rico 39
Stations, Sidings and Major Bridges 143
MAP LIST
Page DALLAS TOWN MAP 25 ORIGINAL RIDGWAY TOWN PLAT
With Proposed RGS Railroad Trackage 41
RIDGWAY - Original RGS Locomotive Terminal 56
RIDGWAY - Town Plat and Railroad Facilities 60
RIDGWAY - Second RGS Locomotive Terminal 72
RGS PROFILE CHART160
RIDGWAY TO DALLAS DIVIDE 161
DALLAS DIVIDE (Peake) 200
DALLAS DIVIDE TO PLACERVILLE 230
*DALLAS DIVIDE TO PLACERVILLE (Road Map) 239
BROWN243
BROWN - PLACERVILLE - VANCE JUNCTION252
*PLACERVILLE TO TELLURIDE253
OMEGA256
OLD PLACERVILLE 262
PLACERVILLE TOWN PLAT271
PLACERVILLE TO VANCE JUNCTION297
SAW PIT304
VANADIUM (Newmire) 309
*PLACERVILLE TO ILLIUM326
VANCE JUNCTION (USGS Map)340
VANCE JUNCTION STATION GROUNDS343
PROPOSED VANCE JUNCTION (ILLIUM) DEPOT SITE 344
VANCE JUNCTION - ILLIUM - TELLURIDE (USGS Map) 380
RGS PROFILE CHART (Under D&RG Ownership) 385
INTRODUCTION
THE DEVELOPMENT of transportation in Colorado is a story involving great courage and brilliant daring. The terrain of more than half of the state is rocky and precipitous - made up of rugged mountain peaks, deep canyons, soaring mesas and broad parklands. However, the pioneer builders of Colorado's toll roads and railroads blasted and scraped their way into even the most remote areas of the state. And truly remarkable engineering feats marked their progress all across this land of "Shining Mountains."
The first routes of white men across Colorado naturally followed the trails used by the Indians for many centuries. One of the first Indian trails used was the South Platte Branch of the Overland Trail, which followed the South Platte River southwestward from Nebraska to present-day Denver. The High Plains Branch (or Mountain Division) of the Santa FTrail followed the Arkansas River westward to Bent's Fort, then turned southwestward through what is now Trinidad to enter New Mexico via Raton Pass.
The wild "Pikes Peak or Bust" Gold Rush of 1859 brought thousands of gold seekers to the High Country. Most of these hardy prospectors knew little of "how" to find gold, but they were willing to face unknown dangers and endure untold hardships as they blazed a new trail across what was then western Kansas Territory (now eastern Colorado). This sometimes hazardous trail came to be known as the Smoky Hill Trail, a route more-or-less paralleled by present-day Interstate Highway 70.
An early form of transportation used by Western fur trappers and traders was known as the Red River Cart - a two-wheeled vehicle usually used in conjunction with pack-mule trains. As trade developed between the East and Spanish New Mexico, the creaking "carreta," which featured two huge wooden wheels, became a commonplace conveyance along the Santa FTrail. A few years later, the horse- or ox-drawn "prairie schooner" (a four-wheeled covered wagon) was the most popular mode of transportation during the Colorado Gold Rush period - although almost anything with wheels could be seen on the rutted trails east of Denver.
Freighting and stagecoach enterprises soon were organized to serve the Eldorados in Colorado. Gradually, even the most remote mining camps in the Rockies were served by lumbering freight wagons and comparatively fast Concord stagecoaches. Some of the rough-androcky mountain trails could be quite hair-raising, and often were fraught with perils of many kinds, not the least of which was the threat of being set upon by gangs of desperados.
During the 1860's many of the new Coloradans began to clamor for railroad service from "back East." And a great effort was put forth to have Denver situated on the nation's first transcontinental railroad route. Unfortunately, the mountains west of Denver proved to be too much of a barrier, and the Union Pacific laid out
its main east-west rail line to the north of Colorado, through southern Wyoming. Disappointed but undaunted, Denver business leaders organized Colorado's first railroad, the Denver Pacific, which laid track between the Mile High City and a Union Pacific rail connection with Cheyenne in June of 1870. Later the same year, the Kansas Pacific opened its route between Kansas City and Denver, providing access to Eastern cities. Subsequently, both of these pioneer railroads became parts of the far-flung Union Pacific system.
GENERAL PALMER AND HIS D&RG
General William Jackson Palmer entered the scene in 1871 with the initial construction of his narrow-gauge Denver & Rio Grande Railway - an elaborately conceived and truly bold railroad venture. The Denver & Rio Grande was rapidly pushed down through General Palmer's Colorado Springs townsite and reached old Pueblo by the summer of 1872. Then, after a pause, the D&RG laid steel westward up the Arkansas Valley to CaCity and Salida in 1874.
In February of 1878, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa FRailroad, which had entered Colorado from Kansas via the lower Arkansas Valley, beat General Palmer's D&RG to Raton Pass. The standard-gauge AT&SF was heading southwestward to Santa Fe and beyond, and it considered itself fortunate in securing the use of Raton Pass. However, in 1880, the D&RG won control of a right-of-way through the narrow Grand Caof the Arkansas - as the Royal Gorge was originally named. This enabled the D&RG to push its narrow-gauge trackage on westward through Salida (Spanish for "gate" or "exit") and across the Great Divide (also called the Continental Divide) at Marshall Pass, 10,858 feet above sea level, the first mainline crossing of the Divide in Colorado. This route continued on through Gunnison, the Black Caof the Gunnison, and over Cerro Summit to Montrose and Grand Junction. Forming the original D&RG east-west mainline to the Utah cities of Salt Lake City and Ogden, this line was completed in 1883 in conjunction with the predecessor of the Rio Grande Western Railway - the D&RG's counterpart in Utah.
The original goal of the D&RG was to lay track down the RGrande Valley through New Mexico to El Paso, Texas, and across the border into Mexico. However, the Santa Factions in beating the D&RG across Raton Pass changed General Palmer's thinking in this regard. Instead, he pushed his narrow-gauge rails up the Arkansas Valley to Leadville, reaching the "Cloud City" in July of 1880. Leadville was experiencing a great silver-mining boom, and the D&RG was anxious to tap the burgeoning freight traffic resulting from the boom.
During 1876-1878 the D&RG had laid rail south from Pueblo to Cuchara Junction, then went westward through Walsenburg to reach Veta Pass (9,400 feet in elevation), and then went on down into the broad San Luis Park (later called a valley) to arrive at sleepy little Alamosa on the banks of the RGrande del Norte in 1878. From Alamosa, the D&RG would continue southward in 1880 to Antonito and then turned west to reach Chama, New Mexico, via 10,015-foot Cumbres Pass ("Summit" in Spanish). This was part of the famous San Juan Extension, which would quickly continue from Chama to Durango the following year, 1881. The San Juan silver rush was at its height, so the D&RG rapidly pushed rails north of Durango immediately - with the hope that it would reach the bustling mining town of Silverton before winter snows prevented further track-laying. However, the weather failed to cooperate, and the D&RG's Silverton Branch was not completed until 1882.
Although the Denver & Rio Grande began to convert its narrow-gauge mainline to standard gauge in 1881 - specifically the busy Denver-to-Pueblo route, which was "dual-gauged" that year it would be another nine years before the entire line to Salt Lake City and Ogden would be standard-gauged.
The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska, which would become the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (now part of the Burlington Northern), was building a standard-gauge line toward Denver from Nebraska, while Governor John Evans' new Denver & New Orleans was preparing to construct a standard-gauge line between Denver and the Gulf of Mexico by way of Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Trinidad. In order to prevent these new systems from taking away lucrative business, the D&RG believed it was being only pragmatic to shift its emphasis toward standard gauge, rather than attempting to fight the trend. However, many secondary lines would remain narrow gauge until the post-World War II era, when most of them were abandoned.
A GREAT YEAR OF PROGRESS
The year 1890 was a great year of accomplishment for the Denver & Rio Grande. David H. Moffat was the president of the reorganized D&RG, having assumed this post in 1887. He had managed to talk the directors into laying narrow-gauge track from the Eagle Canyon down to the Colorado River gorge and into Glenwood Springs - thence, from Glenwood Springs up the Roaring Fork Valley to the rip-roaring silver camp of Aspen. The year 1887 also saw the D&RG build a narrow-gauge branch between Montrose and Ouray, to tap rich silver-mine ore traffic. However, very little additional tracklaying took place during 1888-1889 - with the major exception of a 27-mile extension built from Glenwood Springs to Rifle in 1889, along the north bank of the Colorado River. The D&RG did this in order to stop any other railroad from building their own standard-gauge line down the Colorado River gorge.
The Colorado Midland and the Denver & Rio Grande agreed in 1889 to construct a joint standard-gauge line between New Castle and Grand Junction. There, a connection was made with the Rio Grande Western, which had previously built a line from the Salt Lake City area. (The RGW had already connected with the D&RG's narrow-gauge Marshall Pass route.) The new CM-D&RG line was owned and operated as a separate company, the Rio Grande Junction Railway, and it was the last link in opening up a standard-gauge mainline all the way from Denver to Salt Lake City via Tennessee Pass and the Colorado River gorge east of Glenwood Springs, later called the Glenwood Canyon.
Several gauge conversions were effected in 1890 in order to produce an exclusively standard-gauge D&RG route west of Leadville (from Malta). Dual-gauge trackage remained in place between Denver and Leadville; however, the line between Pueblo (Minnequa) and Trinidad became strictly standard gauge, as did the line from Walsenburg to La Veta. (The D&RG remained three-rail between La Veta and Alamosa, but the narrow-gauge line between Alamosa and Antonito was not converted to three-rail until 1901.
Obviously, when the third rail was removed between Pueblo and La Veta, narrow-gauge trains could no longer reach Denver via Veta Pass. So, the D&RG felt obligated to build a new link in order to connect Alamosa with the rest of the narrow-gauge trackage. Hence, a 54-mile narrow-gauge line was spiked down between Villa Grove and Alamosa - and 53 miles of this link were absolutely straight and virtually level, the longest narrow-gauge track of its kind on the D&RG, traversing the typical sagebrush-covered flatland of the northern San Luis Valley. Another reason for building the Villa Grove-Alamosa line was to provide direct access to the major locomotive- and car-repair facilities at Salida.
A TRANSCONTINENTAL DREAM
Denver's dream of being on a direct east-west mainline railroad appeared to be on the point of fulfillment in 1903, when Denver banker, David H. Moffat, commenced construction of his Denver, North-Western & Pacific, which later became the Denver & Salt Lake Railway - largely financed with Moffat's own money. Unfortunately, Moffat and his partners ran out of money long before reaching Salt Lake City. Ultimately, the construction of the touted Moffat Tunnel in 1923-1928, piercing the Great Divide at James Peak - between Tolland and Winter Park (originally called Vasquez) - and the completion of the "Dotsero Cutoff" in 1934, which linked the D&SL at Orestod (adjacent to Bond), on the Colorado River, with the D&RGW at the confluence of the Eagle and Colorado rivers. This put Denver on a direct transcontinental mainline for the first times, combining the Western Pacific, west of Salt Lake City, with the D&RGW/D&SL intermountain route, establishing connections with the Union Pacific and the Burlington Route between Chicago and Denver.
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