C&S 8027, A Christmas present for the Como Project

[jason midyette]

Jolly old St. Nick brought the South Park Rail Society a Christmas Present; Colorado & Southern narrow-gauge boxcar 8027! Unfortunately, he left it several hundred miles away from Como and in need of some repairs. With your help, we will be able to bring C&S 8027 home to Como!



The Car
Colorado & Southern 8027 is the sole known survivor of a group of 40 such cars built in December of 1898 by the St. Charles car Company of Missouri. Ordered by C&S predecessor Union Pacific Denver & Gulf, the cars were built the month the C&S was formed and were delivered lettered for the new Colorado & Southern and numbered 8025 to 8064. The “St. Charles” boxcars were wood framed, 30 feet long and rode on standard arch bar trucks.

The cars survived long enough to receive major overhauls at the C&S’s Denver shops around 1930 and a few survived to the end of most C&S narrow gauge operations in 1941. C&S records indicate that 8027 was “Dismantled” in Denver in January of 1939.  Stripped of its metal parts, the carbody was sold to a farmer east of Boulder where it was used as a calving shed and general storage until early 2005. Acquired by a private owner in 2005, the car was slowly restored over the next several years.
C&S 8027 has been donated to and is now owned by the South Park Rail Society. Our goal now is to perform some repairs to the car and move it from its present location in Kansas to Como.

The future
The South Park Rail Society is excited by this opportunity to return a piece of Colorado & Southern rolling stock to Como on a permanent basis. Our goal in the immediacy is to finish the cosmetic restoration of No. 8027 and return it to Como where it will serve as both a display and a place to store and organize the amazing amount of artifacts that have been and are being uncovered as work continues in Como. To house the car, a short section of Track No. 5, which once ran behind the west wall of the roundhouse will be rebuilt. This will allow the car to be both prominently displayed as well as easily accessed from the roundhouse.

What next?
In order to accomplish this project, we need to raise $7,000.00; $5,000.00 to move No. 8027 from Kansas to Como and $2,000.00 to ready the car for display. Plans are to work on the car in its present location and then move it to Como.

Donations will be used to accomplish the following tasks;
 - Change out the body bolsters, allowing the car to sit correctly and be moved around
 - Install needle beams, queen posts and truss rods.
 - Repair some rot damage to the siding.
 - Repaint and letter the car to a circa 1930 look, with the C&S “Button Herald”.
 - Move the completed car to Como.

With your help, C&S 8027 will be on display in Como by the summer of 2019!

How can you help?
Via Paypal;
The SPRS’s Paypal account is [e-mail] , please note “C&S 8027” in the notes
The old fashioned way;
Send donations to SPRS – C&S 8027 Project, P.O. Box 197, Bendena KS 66008
Via Go Fund Me
https://www.gofundme.com/bring-camps-8027-home-to-como-sprs&rcid=r01-154609477887-4626155611c841d1&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

Jason Midyette

[Al Pomeroy]

Jason,

this is fantastic. I did not know of this example. what is the lineage of the trucks under the car today? are they correct for this car?
you mentioned bolster work, is this to construct the proper fabricated bolster these cars had? defiantly a donation coming  after the first of the year.

Al P.

[Jeff Ramsey]

Jason; How the heck is Santa going to shove 8027 down the house smoke jack??

[jason midyette]

The trucks are actually Colorado & Northwestern (Switzerland Trail) trucks, complete with their original wheels. They are the same wheelbase as 8027's original trucks and are thus a good match.

The C&N-W trucks came from a private collector who got them from a casino in Boulder City, Nevada. This heritage would imply that one of the Nevada narrow gauges ended up with some C&N-W cars at some point.

As to the body bolsters, as part of being "dismantled" in 1939, the bottom plates of the bolster, center bearings and most of the castings that fit between the frame sills were removed. A present, the car is sitting on a mismatched set of scavenged bolster bottom plates and center bearings, causing it to sit unevenly (and one of the trucks is slightly off center). I have come up with a pair of complete D&RGW 5000 series stock car body bolsters that will be adapted to fit 8027. (The top plates from 8027's original bolsters are still in place and will remain as such with the new parts.)

Below is a photo from March of 2005 showing C&S 8027 as I found it on a farm east of Boulder, Colorado.



Jason Midyette

[Robert McFarland]

Where is Bendina?

[jason midyette]

Bendena is in the northeast corner of Kansas, about 10 miles north of Atchison and 20 or so miles west of St Joseph Missouri

Jason Midyette

[Robert McFarland]

When I was a kid we used to live in Sabetha

[Kurt Maechner]

Jason, this is amazing.  It is overwhelming to see how much momentum the Como project has caused in C&S restoration.  Thanks for sharing!

[jason midyette]

Thanks to a positive response so far to our fundraising efforts, work on C&S 8027 has started...


On Saturday, 8027 was moved over to the "RIP" track, where it will no doubt spend the next few months. Good thing that the Plymouth locomotive behind 8027 is inoperable!


As former D&RGW high side/pipe gondola 1826 was in front of 8027 on the storage track, it got to go for a joyride as well. Motive power on the Doniphan County Narrow Gauge is a 1999 Suburban with a 454 and an automatic transmission. In 4 low, it will move the cars at idle.


Body bolster parts await modification and installation. (these came from a D&RGW 3000 series boxcar/idler flat)


A replacement for the missing needle beam has been cut to size. If you look closely, you will notice the ghost of an "8" on the beam along with the holes for mounting stake pockets. This chunk of wood started out as a side sill for a D&RGW high side gondola and was recycled into a boxcar needle beam during the 1920's rebuild program in Alamosa. It will now be recycled again into a needle beam for C&S 8027.

Thanks to all who have donated so far!

Jason Midyette

https://www.gofundme.com/bring-camps-8027-home-to-como-sprs&rcid=r01-154687676908-3cdabf9087634b3c&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

[SteveG]

Awesome! I've reached out to Benevity, which handles matching corporate gifts for my company (MSFT) and others, to get SPRS added to the list of charities eligible for corporate matching. They said they'd contact [e-mail] in the next couple weeks to verify details. Here's a link to their onboarding guide which they sent me to explain the process.
Hope this helps you reach your goal!

Steve Guty
Redmond, WA

[Jerry Huck]

Thank you Steve that is very much appreciated .

Jerry

[SteveG]

Got email from Benevity confirming that you are now in their system for corporate matching. Hope this helps!

[Tim B]

Hi Steve,

Thanks. All of our accounts with Benevity have been approved now. Thanks for pointing us in this direction.

As you probably know, funding is always an "issue" in Rail Preservation but we have had a good number of people step forward to become supporters of the Como Project, and the granting agencies of noticed which of course helps when they are considering our grant requests.

Thanks again Steve.

[Fritz 52]

Fantastic read and news! How can I help. I'm on a fixed income and need to know about a monthly gift.
Thanks
Fred Cotterell