C&S 74

[Kurt Maechner]

Just posting photos of 74 for fun.

[Todd Hackett]

C&N/DB&W 30 / C&S/RGS 74, this is your life!

Here you are at the Brooks factory in 1898 before being delivered to the Colorado & Northwestern Railway who had ordered you. This shows your New York #2 duplex air pump and running boards mounted to your frame.


Once delivered in Boulder you went into work service to help complete the construction of the line, still looking as you did at the factory.


Your low running boards must not have been well liked, because they moved them up, initially by using stilts on the original frame-mounted brackets.


You were involved in a serious wreck in 1901 when a snowslide pushed you down Grassy Mountain from the mainline to the Big 5 mine spur below.


This is how you looked after being repaired, with your running boards now mounted to your boiler.


Your railroad was reorganized as the Denver, Boulder & Western, but you remained in service with your original number 30. Here you are at the yard in Boulder near the coal loader.


When the Denver, Boulder & Western was wiped out by a flood in 1919, you were sold to equipment dealer Morse Brothers in Denver, and ultimately bought by the Colorado & Southern, who re-numbered you as #74. This photo shows you early in your C&S career, still looking much as you did on the DB&W, just with a new livery and Ridgway spark arrestor.


Soon after, the C&S replaced your Stephenson's valve gear with Walschaerts valve gear, geve you a new cab, modified your tender, and replaced your New York duplex air pump on the fireman's side with an 11" Westinghouse pump on the engineer's side. This formed the basic appearance you still retain today with only minor changes.


As the C&S South Park branch was nearing its end, you were serviced by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy shops in Denver, shown here on a standard gauge flatcar being returned to the C&S for continued use on the Climax branch from Leadville to the Climax Molybdenum Mine.


You and your two sister engines were the final locomotives to run on the C&S narrow gauge before the Climax branch was standard gauged in 1943.


You then went back to Morse Brothers to await your next assignment.


That next job was running on the Rio Grande Southern in southwest Colorado.


While on the RGS, you were popular for Rocky Mountain Railroad Club excursions.


You saw some spectacular mountain scenery.


When the RGS was nearing its end, John Schooland from Boulder learned about your history and decided to bring you home to Boulder. He started a fund-raising drive to buy you, along with a D&RGS coach and RGS caboose, and transport you home to Boulder. Here's John posing with you on a standard gauge flatcar in transit.


You were placed along a ditch in Boulder's Central Park, shown here in the early 1950s after your dedication but before a permanent chain-link fence was built.


Here you are in the late 1970s when members of the Boulder Model Railroad Club started addressing the years of weathering from sitting in the park.


Over the years, your track began to settle and you were at risk of falling into the adjacent ditch.


New track was built across the park in 1982, and you were moved to safety, and even lettered back to your C&S livery with a replica Ridgway spark arrestor for a short time.


You were still in the C&S livery when this Christmas eve blizzard hit 1982.


After much stabilizing work in the park, an ill-fated attempt to get you back in service had you brought to Strasburg Colorado where you were stripped and disassembled.


After determining that the restoration was not feasible, you sat there for several years before being hauled to West Side Locomotive Works in Denver, where you were re-assembled.


In preparation for delivering you to the Colorado Railroad Museum on loan from the City of Boulder, you were lettered for the Rio Grande Southern since that best reflected your history in your current appearance.  


It turned out that the decision makers in Boulder didn't understand what it meant to be lettered for the RGS, and insisted that you be C&N 30 for at least a short time at the railroad museum, so a vinyl wrap was printed for your tender and cab.


Eventually, you were allowed to return to the RGS livery, as shown in this photo from October 2025.