Mystery Water Tank

[Jeff Ramsey]

Could this be on the Leavick branch? It’s too small for the the tank at Alma Junction.

[Jim Courtney]

Wow Jeff,

Looks like you've found another of the small "three bent tanks", like those at Blackhawk, Morrison and Tunnel Gulch.
See: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/C-amp-S-Water-Tank-at-Blackhawk-December-11-1913-td11993.html#a12031

The arrangement of the frost box behind the trackside bent looks like the tank at Tunnel Gulch. Could this be the Tunnel Gulch tank in service?  Not sure the surrounding scenery matches . . .

Anyone know??

Looking through Mac Poor's station list, two other possibilities:

Lime Rock Tank at MP 114.20 on the Alma branch, just 0.3 miles south of Fairplay would match the inscription on the photo. Poor doesn't list the tanks capacity.

McGees at MP 126.59 on the mailnline to Buena vista, just west of Trout Creek Pass. Poor lists a tank capacity of 17,960 gallons, which is about right for a "three bent tank".

Perhaps Chris can use his Google Earth skills to confirm or exclude these two locations based on the distant scenery.

[Chris Walker]

Jeff,
a great image and even better find.  Thanks for sharing this Dad and Boy image with us.

Jim,
my thoughts are "I Dunno".  Google has a very limited presence in these areas. The ground cover and vegetation along with the ridgeline looks like upstream of Fairplay or maybe the Leavick Branch.

McGee's would be sandy, grassy and not Piney, so I don't think its there: I was along that dirt road once but wasn't certain of the exact location, and that was back in '96.
Lime Rock Tank; Poor lists that as a Siding, with no mention of an actual Tank, and the ground there is peaty, grassy, not rocky nor Piney and around the area of Dredge tailings. The C&S TT#1 of June 5 1922 lists a Spur there, Gold Dredge Spur, and no W.
London Junction(Alma) Doesn't fit with any pictures in vegetation and ground cover. 39.26979320354122, -106.05058762319213  
The Tank site is exactly in the centre of this Drone shot on Google.


 Tunnel Gulch tank 

[Jeff Young]

The terrain and vegetation certainly looks like Leavick.



(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Train_wreck,_Leavick,_c._1897_-_DPLA_-_31fb7e75eaa29c21897c532951de438c_%28cropped%29.jpg)

[Jim Courtney]

Thoughtful reply, Chris.

I suggested Lime Rock Tank due to the name (they didn't name the place Lime Rock Goat) and proximity to Faiplay. Looking through the 1894 DL&G B&B book that Rick Steel posted, the station named Lime Rock Tank has the word Tank crossed through and the word Track hand written above it. So there may have been a water tank there in the early days, but gone by the 1890s. Jeff's photo has a definite 20th century feel to it, with the flat topped roof.

I suggested McGees because it is the only station anywhere near Fairplay with a water tank noted of 17,960 gal capacity, which would match a small water tank as in Jeff's photo.

I can't find any water tank listed on the Leavick branch.

So, the "mystery tanks' location remains a mystery.

[Chris Walker]

Jim, or Rick Steele....

is there any mention of the Leavick Br. in that B&B book (Dimmler?)
also has anyone see a picture in Beartrap days of the WT at London Jct(Alma)?

[Jim Courtney]

Re: Leavick branch in B&B books.

I went back through Rick's B&B book, copied page 145 concerning the Alma Branch. There is no mention of buildings and bridges on the Leavick branch, as if there were none:




I've re-read the sections about the Leavick Branch in Poor, The Pictorial Supplement and the CRA. Leavick was the shipping point for the Horseshoe mining district. There is surprisingly little info on this part of the C&Sng. The only mentions of the Leavick branch concern the train wreck of the eastbound mixed train in DL&G days, illustrated by the picture that Jeff Young posted. In accounts of the wreck, the train left Leavick and began descending the 5.8% grade. As the train tried to slow to take water at Mudsill, the train ran away and toppled over the side of the embankment.

So, perhaps there was a water tank at Mudsill, about a mile below Leavick. But the portion of the 1918 ICC valuation map of Leavick/Mudsill, published in the Klingers' book, shows no tank, nor any other structures.

As to the Alma, AKA London Junction tank, it was a big 47,500 gal tank. Here is a photo of the tank dated 1914, from my computer files (don't remember where I found it, perhaps from one of the Klingers' books):




And by the time the Denver Water Board special visited Alma in 1929, the tank looked about the same (tank at right frame):




So, is it still possible to take a jeep ride up to Mudsill??

[Chris Walker]

Thanks Jim for confirming there was no listing for the Leavick Branch in the B&B pages.

There was a short, low bridge just West of the Leavick Mill around the e-o-t, and still visible today on Google Earth(&Maps).  I'm surprised that didn't make the record.
 In DSP&P, pg292 EJ Haley related a story of an Engineer walking across a high, spindly Trestle, before his Fireman started the Loco across before jumping off.    

Mac Poor's DSP&P has this E.J.Haley map of the D.SP.&Hill Top line.  Still no mention of a Tank though.


C&S Rly June 1922 ETT. excerpt.



Getting back to London Jct....

Mineral Belt V-II had this map.  David Digerness, along with Mal Ferrell in his South Park Line book, both put the Tank on the wrongside of the tracks.  Something that has stuck with me for 45 years, grrrrr.




So, is it still possible to take a jeep ride up to Mudsill??

Well, Jim.....  I got up there in '98 in a Buick Century, but it was a Rental.




I missed it at the time, probably overwhelmed by the never-grows-old scenery, that the Mudsill wye ties were still visible.

[Matt Hutson]

Hi guys,
I was last up to the mill at Leavick in 2017, and it's deteriorated quite a bit:


Back to the topic at hand, it seems pretty much mandatory that there had to be a way for locomotives to take on water on the branch, given the water capacities of tenders. Tanks were usually necessary every 8-12 miles.

Cheers,
Matt

[Jim Courtney]

Chris and Matt,

Thanks for the additional info and photos.

Before Jeff posted the water tank photo and started this thread, I knew very little about the Leavick branch. It bugs me that the B&B book lists no structures or bridges on this stretch of railroad, as if it didn't exist. My understanding is that the DL&G B&B book was printed in 1894, probably derived from similar inventories from original South Park days. The original owner of Rick's copy thereafter updated the book for many years, crossing out structures destroyed by fire (the Alpine engine house, the Kokomo water tank, etc.) and hand writing in additions such as the coaling trestle at Dickey, with details including the little things like privy's.

I've kept reading in my book collection and in The Mineral Belt, Volume 2 by Digerness, I found several pages devoted to the Leavick Branch. Included was this brief history of construction:




Explains why there is no mention of the Leavick branch in the 1894 B&B book--it had not been built yet! As the branch was owned by Receiver Trumbull, it was never a part of the DL&G, nor added to the official inventory. When Trumbull sold the branch to the newly formed C&S, there was so much going on, that no one ever sat down and added any bridges or structures to the C&S inventory.

In the abandonment chapter of Poor's book, he cites a 1923 ICC report that all operations on the branch had ceased by that date, but the rails were not removed until the final system abandonment. When the Garos to Alma line was pulled up, the scrap train must have made one last trip up to Leavick.

Photos in Digerness's book include this photo of the Leavick Mill, probably in the 1960s:




In the left foreground is the small bridge that was never listed in the B&B inventories. The siding at Leavick ran along the right side of the structure.

As to any photos of rail operations, that might lend a clue as to the location of any water tank, included are two good copies of photographs of the train wreck in 1897, By the oral history recorded by Poor, the location was likely just below Mudsill, where the train would normally stop for water.

The less-cropped photo looking west (upgrade) shows no sign of a water tank:




But the companion photo, looking downgrade to the east, might give a hint as to a water tank location:




To the left of the distant locomotive, there appears to be a dark structure. Last night I enlarged this section, while sipping some of my "sanding" whiskey:




To my eye, the dark structure seems to have a conical roof with a center filial, hiding behind the steam from the locomotives whistle or blow-off cock. Or perhaps the whiskey helped me find what I wanted to find. You decide.

Admittedly, the structure seems set back too far from the track to have been a water tank. The map by Haley that Chris posted shows the "Dauntless Mine" located roughly in the same area, so the dark structure could be a building of that mining operation. If anyone has a high resolution copy of this photo, or knows of one online, that might further settle the matter.

So, I think it likely that Jeff's photo is a water tank (with a later flat topped roof) on the Leavick branch, the only place "near Fairplay" that it could be located. If so, I believe it would have been on the north side of the grade, just a bit down grade from Mudsill.

I remembered that I have several of the 1918 ICC valuation maps, that I purchased from the Colorado RR Museum. My map of the Garo-Alma section doesn't show anything of the Leavick branch, except Hill Top Jct. But not all 1918 ICC valuation maps were created equal. The Klingers' published this map from the 1918 valuation series in their Gunnison division book:




The little bridge and the siding at the Leavick Mill are at the left, lower corner. If that is Jeff's water tank in the second wreck photo, it would be located down grade from Mudsill, just off the map at the top right corner. If anyone has a copy of the 1918 maps that show the entire Leavick branch, there may be a water tank lurking in there.

Since Chris has established that the ties of the Mudsill wye still exist, a drive up there might give one a starting place to look for any evidence of the stone or timber footings for the "three bent tank", just down grade from the wye.

If Jeff's tank was built in 1896, by Trumbull's company, I think it is odd that they would follow standard plans for a UP era, small water tank. Maybe the drawings were still available in the DL&G files, so they just used those. Or maybe they just moved the tank up from Denver, as were other structures . . .

[South Park]

  I believe an intermittent forum participant provided ample
evidence that the Como depot was actually a shipping crate
used to get this water tank from Denver to the Leavick branch,
later hauled back to Como, where is was placed in service as
the depot.

[Dave Eggleston]

Jim Courtney wrote

The little bridge and the siding at the Leavick Mill are at the left, lower corner. If that is Jeff's water tank in the second wreck photo, it would be located down grade from Mudsill, just off the map at the top right corner. If anyone has a copy of the 1918 maps that show the entire Leavick branch, there may be a water tank lurking in there.

I do have the full map of the branch. Klinger's version clips a tiny bit off the left edge that shows the tail end of the branch. No water tank is seen in that cropped section. And looking across the full Leavick branch I don't see any water tanks on the three 1918 ICC map pages covering the branch from Hilltop Jct to Leavick--just small bridges, culverts, cattle guards and road crossings appear. I followed the full Alma branch ICC map down to Garos and the first tanks I encounter on the 1918 ICC map are the pair at Garos. Looks like no water at Fairplay or Alma in 1918. The 1898 Employee timetable, found in Helmer's Alpine Tunnel book, lists water at both Garos and Alma.

The branch runs across 3 full map pages and I don't have a scanner to grab big, zoomable images. The best I can do is grab screen shots and they won't zoom well. But I'm hitting a bigger issue: For some reason the forum won't let me select the images off my laptop. When I click "Choose file" it doesn't pop up the file dialog box...nothing happens. I'm not sure why? This has always worked in the past.

[Mike Trent]

Dave, you might try refreshing your page, or shutting off your computer and laptop. Then reboot. I've also had trouble with my access with regard to images, but at least I can access my router now, even it it takes forever to upload.

[Dave Eggleston]

Thanks Mike. I was used do that in my old PC days, hadn't run into it on my Mac but guess what? The restart appears to have brought things back to life.

Source: CO Railroad Museum.

I've pulled 9 images of the Leavick branch and will post them consecutively and BIG and across two posts, just in case there's a file size issue.

[Chris Walker]

Best picture available showing the early style tank at Alma.
 
Denver Public Library Z-5724

[Dave Eggleston]

And the final four:









Hopefully people can make out the details on these. Let me know if there is any detail needing to be zoomed in on.

[Dave Eggleston]

I went to Dan Edward's Documentary History of the South Park, V5, and there I found it.

On page 87 he talks to what was at each station on the line. At Horseshoe (MP 121.79, approx MP 8 on the 1918 ICC map) a water tank was constructed in 1896.

Page 61: Sept 22, 1897 Bill collectable from DL&G for cost of labor on New Tank at Horseshoe during August 1897 $40.40.

Page 63: From the accounts of Trumbull of construction advances made by the Receiver for construction there is a listing for water tank at Horseshoe of $730.04 (from a C&S ledger of 1928).

There is no mention of the tank being pulled down or moved in Edward's book but it is not present on the 1918 ICC map. Operations on the branch ended Nov, 1922.

For reference, here's the ICC map of Horseshoe, located 3 miles before the end of the branch at Leavick:

[Jeff Ramsey]

A little information about the image from the post of Laura Van Dusen:
This photo is from a post about Willia Hamilton Johnson, who lived with her husband, a miner in Alma, a hundred years ago. She had a Kodak camera and loved to take photos. She developed them as well. The mines I found that Bob worked on were the North London, South London, Sweet Home and Dolly Varden. I don't know if he worked at any others, such as Horseshoe or Leavick, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't hope on a train to take a ride. There is a man standing by the tank. It could be Bob Johnson, Willia's husband.

[Jeff Ramsey]

Then mystery solved!? Thanks for your post Dave Eggleston. Interesting that it is not on the ICC maps yet image is supposedly in the 1920s.

[Southpark]

Jeff, Hey thanks on the water tank follow up from Van Dusen.  I was wondering if the photo was back stamped where it was printed or if the person who took the photo did their own printing.  One never knows what is in "family" photo albums of folks in the Park!  Sure could have used that one in one of our books.
Tom Klinger