Above Breckenridge -- Climbing Boreas Pass c.1901

[Jim Courtney]

I was lucky to be able to purchase this original print on eBay last week. The morning sun casts long shadows as the eastbound Leadville to Denver passenger train climbs Boreas above Breckenridge, about to cross the long fill leading to Rocky Point cut.

The photo is easy to date to 1900-1903, as the Cooke 2-6-0 locomotive has been rebuilt, but still has link and pin couplers. There appears to be  a Columbine herald on the cab. The tender number is not discernible. The smoke box is a dark color, fresh graphite and oil that has not yet oxidized. I can imagine an oxidized olive green boiler jacket, as Jeff Ramsey has described.





I had hoped that a high resolution scan of an original contact print would tease out a lot more detail. But the train in the image still has a blurry quality, probably movement artifact at slow shutter speeds. I'm guessing that the locomotive is number 9 as the dome covers appear rounded to me -- whattaya think??





The three car passenger consist includes one of the South Park long RPO-Baggage cars, either C&S 114 (later number 13) or unlucky 115 which burned in 1906, before it was renumbered. I can't identify the first coach, but the last coach is one of the three South Park cars with tall windows and skinny fascia boards, C&S nos. 161-163.

To me, it appears to be late spring or, more likely, early summer as the delicate remains of last winter's snowfall are still present. A neat detail to remember for my S scale vision of the Breckenridge area . . .

[Paul R.]

Hello Jim
Does that look like 2 white flags on the front? Paul R.

[Jim Courtney]

I see what you mean, Paul, but I just can't tell.

Usually the pilot flag holders were at the ends of the pilot beam, as below:

[John Greenly]

Great picture, Jim!  

The low side lighting angle is very dramatic, a wonderful scene.  It's too bad it isn't sharper.  Best I can make out, #9 is the best guess for the loco,  although it is really hard to be sure of the dome shape with the blur, other details look right.  It looks to be printed on rather pebbly paper?  That may be distorting details too.  

I can't figure out what those light blobs are on the pilot, either.  I agree with you, probably not flags.  Maybe just bright reflections of sunlight off the pilot braces.  Overexposed highlights in blurry photos do bleed out into the surroundings that way.  

I really like your thought of putting some snow remnants in your layout scenery.  Not sure I've seen that done before, and it would make a very characteristic and convincing detail.

Cheers,
John

[Jim Courtney]

I wonder if the two light areas just above the pilot beam have to do with the flanger lift mechanism, a bit different in their first iterations.  Consider C&S number 4 at Dickey, sometime after automatic couplers were applied in 1903:




The two vertical supports for the horizontal bar (that pivots to move the flanger lift levers) are in about the right position as the two light spots above the pilot beam in the first photo.  Maybe they were painted white or silver?? Or just an odd reflection of the sun off a glossy black paint surface?

I hadn't really noticed how different the early mechanisms were from those in the 1930's -- another intricate part to fabricate for my 1901 version of C&S 10..

[Ken Martin]

Jim,

Nice photo, good catch.

The rear car is one of four Pullman built “chair” cars (DSP&P 18-21), car 20 was dropped in 1890. Car 161 became coach C&S 59 and 162 and 163 became C&S 78-79.
They originally had the same 6ft truck as the sleepers.

Ken Martin

[Chris Walker]

John Greenly wrote

snipped

I really like your thought of putting some snow remnants in your layout scenery.  Not sure I've seen that done before, and it would make a very characteristic and convincing detail.

Cheers,
John

John,

In the November, 1977 issue of the NG&SL Gazette, Red Mountain on the Wye by Robert D. Ross and very well done at that.
Just sifted raw Plaster of Paris.

[Jeff Young]

That's outstanding!

[John Greenly]

Chris, thanks!  that is a wonderful winter scene, with bare areas maybe where the snow has blown off?    I guess I was thinking more of a time, maybe even full summer at high altitude, when there are still remnants of snowpack left in shady spots and hollows where snow accumulated, which is what Jim's photo reminded me of.

John  

[Chris Walker]

John,

the author wrote "tried to simulate the time of a late Winter thaw".  Winter at Red Mountain Town would be a different look.  

I thought Jim's picture resembled more the remnants of an early snowfall marking the end of Summer in the high country, mostly gone a few days later rather than what still hasn't melted from the previous Winter. At least that is my observation.

Personally I could never get any scenery to look real so I gave away model railroading for the real thing.  And left the scenic effects up to the Boss.

Once in a Lifetime.

[Jim Courtney]

WOW. Upside-down snow at the Walker place . . . Once in a lifetime.   Or is it, Chris?

According to Professor Valentina Zharkova of the Northumbria University, 2020 is a transition year into a 5 or 6 year solar minimum, the most significant since the Maunder Minimum, that caused "The Little Ice Age."

Her 5 year forecast for the Northern Hemisphere is for hotter, dry summers and colder, wet winters. Unfortunately, she pretty much feels the Southern Hemisphere is screwed for the next 5 or 6 years, with much colder and wetter weather, year round, until 2025 or so.

So, Chris, it might be prudent to get busy in your shop and build a rotary snowplow for your tram. I think a scaled down version of the Swayne Lumber Co. rotary would fit the bill nicely:




And maybe you could train your goats to push it . . .