Modeling Romely, Apline Tunnel, St Elmo

[Don Gustavson II]

We have some Empty Space in the Train room. This of course  has to be removed and replaced with more train layout.

My plan is to see what I can build of Romely, Apline Tunnel, and the South Mountain side of St Elmo in this Empty space. The town of St Elmo will be across our walkway. I have buildings for this already. Will post that later.  I also would like to  make something resembling the Mary Murphy Mine with a Tramway.

I have always wanted to make some kind of flum. And an open stope you can look into. This gives me a place to do that.

(Plans are subject to change)
There is standard gauge I need to incorporate in this area. This will be mostly hidden inside the mountain and will consist of a Duel Gauge reverse loop.
The top right of this plan will be Narrow/Standard/Duel Gauge. And will not represent any particular part of the C&S necessarily. It will be lower in elevation then Romely and the the rest of the narrow gauge track.
I just need a good spot to transfer Cattle/Lumber/Oil from Narrow to Standard gauge. I would like to maybe model the Saw Mill based off of something around the C&S.

The two Standard gauge tracks at the top right will go through the wall into the next room and go into the future 60 years to a piggyback/shipping yard. It will have trains come over from our 50s/60s era standard gauge layout.

I have condensed Romey for space reason. Combined the spur on the bridge with the siding.(maybe I will have room for both). And I brought the turnout for the turntable closer to the Depot. I think I will be able to get a nice amount of the structures on the layout however.

I added the spurs on the opposite side of the layout for another Mine and a Log Pond to drop trees into. Just wanted to do more with the space.

St Elmo looks like they had a Box car for a depot with a wagon trail going down the hill side into town.. (let me know if I am wrong.) So I will be able to do that on a spur.

This design will allow the train to go across the Palisades, Alpine Tunnel, Romely, then to St Elmo.

I also hope to make some kind of Bar where one can set drinks and snacks on the end. Maybe about a foot out. Should be room for a bar stool or two.

Hope to start bench work soon.

[Jeff Young]

If you can fit it in, the Mary Murphy had this neat midway station where one tram deposited in another.  This picture shows the midway station and the top station:



And here are some plans of the midway transfer station:



Cheers,
Jeff.

[Don Gustavson II]

Thanks. I have had that in my mind passably . Seems to be a lot of pictures of it in the internet.
I will see how the mountain turns out.

[Jeff Young]

Here's a couple more from back in the day.

An early shot, with what appear to be powerhouses both above and below grade:



And a later view with at least 2 mill buildings, but neither one has stacks:



I assume you found the thread with the great Romley depot pictures from Todd and Doug?

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Jim Courtney]

St Elmo looks like they had a Box car for a depot with a wagon trail going down the hill side into town.. (let me know if I am wrong.) So I will be able to do that on a spur.

Actually Don, St Elmo had a formal depot (kinda like the one at Romley) that sat above the town, on the mainline grade.  The track didn't even level out at the depot, just kept climbing toward Alpine. This photo is from the early 1920s:



Colorado Railroad Museum Collection, in the Klingers' South Park's Gunnison Division Memories . . .


There was a spur off the mainline (foreground of above photo) that leveled out and ran into the town, to various mine structures over the years; the two boxcar bodies were located on that spur.



In Digerness, The Mineral Belt, Volume II


The view from the depot platform north, shows how steep the grade was. The switch stand for the town spur is in the mid left foreground. (Also another telegraph insulator in silhouette for South Park to identify).

The boxcar bodies were between the mainline and the spur, a ways south of the depot:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/76875/rv/singleitem/rec/1


The mainline is at top right, near the power line.


The Mary Murphy holdings also had a large mill between St Elmo and Romely:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/38766/rv/singleitem/rec/2



Maybe others, more knowledgeable than I, can give us more info on this mill.

Jim

[Jim Courtney]

Jeff,

The HL King photo of Romley has some interesting freight cars spotted on the siding:




Coal car 4365 is one of the 1902 coal cars with the elusive "The Colorado Road" box herald.

The coal car behind it, in block lettering, looks to be a 1907 (phase 2) coal car.

The boxcar behind the coal cars, 8030, is one of the 1899 St Charles boxcars, re-shopped with the block monogram lettering.

And lookey here . . .  . . . behind the boxcar is a SUF reefer, with safety appliance ladder on the end, still painted in a lighter color (yellow vs orange) and lettered in the black block monogram scheme, with "Refrigerator" to the right of the door.

The safety appliance hardware suggests late 'teens to early twenties for the date. Now we know that those SUF reefers in the Buena Vista photos, made it all the way up to Romley.

[South Park]

  The insulator is cropped out of your posted photo, but it is a CD 126.4
W.E. Mfg. Co./1871 Patent Hemingray product in a nice teal aqua.  It sits
in my display of early threaded telegraph pieces.  

  These were replacements, installed in the early 80's.  The original construction
all the way to Gunnison used 133.4 1871 Patent Hemingrays.  I have a nice
example that saw service about a mile west of the tunnel.

[South Park]

  Ah, ...  I see the insulator now !  I'll take a photo of it and post later.

[Don Gustavson II]

This is great! Thanks everyone. I knew about the two box cars. But could not figure out if there was a real Depot at St Elmo. Felt like there should have been. Haveing one on the main line, without level track, should work out perfect.

[Robert McFarland]

The TOWN of Alpine is downgrade from St.Elmo,better known in C&S days as Fisher.

[Robert McFarland]

I believe the line into St.Elmo branched off about where the grade and the road in to St.Elmo split.  

[Jeff Young]

Hi Jim,

I can’t believe I missed the 1902 coal car in there!  (Particularly since it’s one of the clearest images I’ve seen of one.)

Not sure about that reefer, though.  Shouldn’t the “Refrigerator” be up higher if it’s block-letter scheme?

And what’s that at the top-centre of your enlargement?  A harp stand on the mainline at this late a date?  (Maybe most of the others were replaced with Elliots/Budas between 1890 and 1895 when the tunnel was closed?)

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Chris Walker]

Jeff,
the Harps were still fitted 2 out of 3 switches at Alpine after abandonment.  The TT siding Harp, Bob Richardson stashed in the willows until he could relieve it for the CRRM,

WHJ-1425

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/55336/rv/singleitem/rec/7

X-6500
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/3680/rv/singleitem/rec/17

X-6497

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/3681/rv/singleitem/rec/19

[Jim Courtney]

I dunno, Jeff,

Not sure about that reefer, though.  Shouldn’t the “Refrigerator” be up higher if it’s block-letter scheme?


This is the closest that I've come to finding a clear side view of a C&S SUF reefer, in the yellow paint with black lettering in the block gothic monogram scheme.  The word "refrigerator" in the button scheme lettering introduced about 1925-26, was in small lettering and up near the underside of the fascia.

I have the C&S lettering diagram for the SUF reefers that John Maxwell drew from C&S plans, but this info was prior to building in 1909, without the word "Refrigerator" on the car sides.


Chris Walker holds the current prize for finding more distant, blurry or partial views of the block-lettered SUF reefers hiding in Buena Vista:

http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/1472/rv/singleitem/rec/12


The car in front of the depot bay window with gable is a SUF reefer -- the tall car to the right is one of the tall St Charles reefers of 1899.


http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/252/rv/singleitem/rec/21


There appears to be the lettering for "Refrigerator" on the SUF reefer in this train at Buena Vista, to the right of the door.


http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/5399/rv/singleitem/rec/110


And here, where Chris caught two reefers hiding behind the court house, the lettering on the car on the left is illegible, partially covered by leaves, while that on the car to the right is cut off by the frame of the photo.


The only full-on, close up block lettering of a SUF reefer that I've found is the "ghost lettering" on this reefer, C&S 1117.


In Poole and Martin, Grandt's Narrow Gauge Pictorial VIII


I've played with this image on my computer in various ways, trying to enhance the "ghost lettering". This is the best I can do. The faint ghost of "Refrigerator" is barely visible above the black rectangular placard board.  It would appear that the horizontal center line of the word "Refrigerator" is centered vertically between the upper and middle door hinge:




That seems to be consistent with what I think is a SUF reefer at Romley:




Anyway, the word "Refrigerator" is in the Thinfilm black C&S block SUF reefer set, and that's where I'm going to place it on my Sn3 reefers.

Anyone have a better view?

Jim

[Jeff Young]

Interesting, Jim.

Microtrains put the "REFRIGERATOR" up higher:



But I think your ghost image is the most compelling data I've seen, suggesting that Microtrains got it wrong.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Doug Heitkamp]

Here ya go…

[Jim Courtney]

Doug, I'd hoped that you would drop by and opine. Since your starting a c1909 reefer, what's your take on the block lettering?

Derrell Poole did a 4 part series on the early SUF reefers on the main blog site.  In part 4 (http://coloradosouthern.blogspot.com/2014/02/c-refrigerator-cars-part-four.html) he described painting and lettering the cars.

Derrell used the CDS dry transfer sets. He placed "Refrigerator" a smidge higher on the car side than I would have guessed. In his text, he states that the "Refrigerator" may have been omitted when the reefers where renumbered to 4-digit 1100 series cars in 1912.  He suggests that from about 1912 until the button scheme showed up about 1925, the reefers carried only a block number on the side to the right of the door, like a boxcar. That is consistent with Maxwell's lettering diagram, which shows no "Refrigerator".  Unfortunately, Maxwell's drawing has no reference date to the C&S paint shop data.

So's what's a guy to do?  Were the cars built with number only in 1909, and "Refrigerator" added with the 1912 renumbering (as the "ghost" images suggest)?  Or did the cars come with "Refrigerator" as built, like Derrell's beautiful cars, and the word dropped in 1912? Or was it always there, until the button herald came along.

The Thinfilm "Refrigerator" is smaller than on the CDS set, 9" tall as opposed to 10" in Derrell's description.  And the word seems shorter than the lettering on Derrell's car.

Since no one's found a good side view of a reefer between 1909 and 1925 (other than ghost lettering), I guess one can suit oneself. I'm not sure I'd feel compelled to re-letter those Microtrains cars, Jeff.

And my apologies to Don -- I should have started a new thread, 'stead of high jacking his!

[Doug Heitkamp]

I'd put the lettering about here:

[Jeff Young]

Great stuff, Doug.

Jim, for what it’s worth, I’m going to assume they didn’t re-shop the cars for the renumber.  I’m starting with a Microtrains car, so my “REFRIGERATOR” is already too high, but I’m just going to leave it there and put the new number in a freshly-painted box below it.

I weathered the car without sufficient lighting in my paint booth, and it came out REALLY heavy.  But the button-herald car I did later came out perfect, so I think I’m just going to live with one of them being a little over-done.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Jim Courtney]

Great detail photo, Doug.

Vertically center "Refrigerator" over the nails for the sheathing. But it looks like I need to punch two nail holes for each board!

Jim