Another early (1881) waycar wreck?

[Dave Eggleston]

One thing Darrell wrote in part 1 of his History of Colorado & Southern Cabooses (Aug/Sept 1995 Outdoor Railroader) is of the loss of two cabooses/waycars prior to 1885: one possibly on August 3, 1881 reported in the Denver Republican and another that was written off in the UP Journals in 1884.

Maybe there was one more? I just stumbled on an article in The Leadville Daily Herald of November 13, 1881, reporting a wreck that happened the previous afternoon. Reading the article, my interpretation is two sections were sent by the South Park to pick up cars in Buena Vista and bring them back. The sections were each a single engine and caboose (engine 50 and engine 55 and 2 cabooses), departing from the Leadville depot separated by a few minutes. Before leaving Section 1 was warned to watch for D&RG switching at the La Plata smelter. As it approached La Plata, the engineer noted a boxcar that had been switched by the D&RG onto the main and he whistled brakes down. Due to snow and downgrade the engine clearly wouldn't stop and the crew jumped. Engine 50 plowed into the boxcar full of Robinson ore consigned to the American smelter.

Minutes later engine 55 came up, tried to stop, the crew jumped and the engine plowed into the caboose behind engine 50, destroying it.

The article gives no details of which cabooses. But if South Park, is this wreck a third waycar destroyed before 1885? Has anyone heard anything else about this wreck? I don't recall seeing it mentioned in other posts.

Here's the full article, I had to grab it in two screen shots:

[Robert McFarland]

Sounds like the car that the first locomotive hit was an ore car  as the engine climbed the car when it hit and received damage to its valve gear.The engineer should have got fired as he had been warned about the cars on the track and shouldn't have been running as fast as the article said he was.Probably wasn't but these guys should have known the territory.The second engine lost its smokebox front amongst other things-notice how many of the early Baldwins have replacement fronts including 51/191?Article said it lost its stack-notice that some of the early Baldwins have Replacement Nesmiths with slightly different geometry than the one shown on 51 at the Palisades.There was a loco roster that used to be on one of the Yahoo group files  that goes into  a little bit of detail about wrecks that might have had cabooses destroyed.

[Robert McFarland]

Makes you wonder what happened to the caboose the second engine was pulling.

[Dave Eggleston]

It does. I suspect it was far less damaged.