Como roundhouse 1981 "reaching the point of no return"

[Kurt Maechner]

For anyone who has seen the startling restorations in Como in the last few years, it is good to remember just how far things have come.  

In perusing old copies of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club's Rocky Mountain Rail Report newsletters, I came across the following from one year shy of four decades ago.

June 1981

IF YOUR TRAVEL PLANS INCLUDE ANY EXPEDITIONS across Colorado in the future, and you are motoring through South Park on 285 around eating time, stopping to vanquish hunger pains at the Como Depot [sic - the hotel] at Como may be worthy of consideration. We don't "own any stock" in the restaurant, but Jo and Keith Hodges deserve credit and mention for providing a useful function for the building by the operation of their restaurant, which also results in the preservation of the historic railroad hotel. The food is good, and reasonably priced. (A recent visit reaffirmed a previous observation that the prime rib is "tops".) Hours are 6:30 AM to 9:00 PM (until 8:00 PM on Sundays). They are closed on Tuesdays.

The Como roundhouse sits nearby, of course, looking more forlorn everyday. The building and grounds are for sale for a reported $50,000, a sum hardly attainable by any group desiring to acquire the building for preservation, particularly when con­sidering the cost of needed repair. It is sad to see such a memorable part of our state's railroad history reaching the point of no return. Ideas, anyone? Oh yes, the name of the company handling the property is Leach Realty.

I have a few more photos of photos from the 1980s in Como here.

[Todd Hackett]

Here are some of my photos of Como from the '80s and '90s. I spent a lot of time there during those decades, but that was the film era where it wasn't very convenient to snap a few photos every time we did something. I probably have a lot of B&W photos from that time period, but I haven't scanned most of those.

1981:
This is how it looked before the restoration efforts started.













1985 (January):
This was the day that we measured the building for the Colorado Scale Models O scale model. Bill Kazel owned it by this time, but the initial clean-up had barely started.

The boxcar shed before Greg Kazel and I stabilized it:




The stone built-up on the north wall to match up with the wooden additions was still in place. Bill tore it down soon after because it was in danger of falling.




1985 (September):
This was the first big volunteer workday, which was spent mucking the sawdust and horses#*t out of the building.






1989:
After much work...


1993:



1994:

Boxcars have been uprighted and braced, but not yet painted.


New roof installed on bay 1 (pictured here) and 6 using original structure with added support and I think some joists salvaged from other bays. Stone repair on the parapet wall were still underway:


1995:
Roof replacement on bays 2 through 5, using composite TJI joists since 2x12s that long were difficult or impossible to locate, and probably wouldn't have been strong enough. These photos were taken after removing the old roof while preparing for the new.











1996 (June & July):
Building is basically sound and weather-tight.















1996 (September):

A bit of a set back... Lightning struck the building shattering the cap stones in the corner of bay 1.

[Kurt Maechner]

Thanks for these photos.  Amazing.  I've never seen shots of the entire roof removed!

How much of the present bay doors are original?  Are they a mixture or completely rebuilt?

[Todd Hackett]

Kurt Maechner wrote

...How much of the present bay doors are original?  Are they a mixture or completely rebuilt?

Some are completely new because there wasn't enough useable material left, others are a mixture of existing and new materials. I'm pretty sure that Bill had a grant for rebuilding them, and outsourced the work to a carpenter. Some remains are still in the field to the south of the roundhouse (or at least they were there a few years ago), and I'm pretty sure that a couple of the original doors went to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, but I'm not sure what they did with them. Looking at the photo from 1996, I'm pretty sure that the doors for the middle two bays are completely new and the rest have a lot of original material.