Unusual Passenger Consist at Dickey, 1937 (CB&Q 537)

[Keith Hayes]

More 537!!!

[Jim Courtney]

Also...regarding the wye. My initial thought is that the tail is rather short. However consulting the folio Rick transcribed, the tail appears to be of adequate length to wye the entire train. It has been a couple years since I visited Leadville, but the current wye tail is on a high fill, and studying the map, appears to have moved south, closer to the roundhouse. It seems odd to me that the wye would move south, but then one photo Chris shared of the wye and 'end of 3rd rail' shows the wye to be on reasonably flat terrain.

Anyone?


As Chris pointed out, the wye itself was on relatively flat ground that sloped to the east. But I still think the tail track of the wye extended further east, where the land dropped away, on a fill. If the 1902 passenger train in the photo commonly pulled out on the wye tail to turn and back the train down to the depot, it would still be "arriving" in Leadville.


From 1918 C&S valuation map, obtained from Colorado Railroad Museum


The tail track of the wye has no listed length, but based on the lengths of the two legs of the wye, appears to be about 500', certainly long enough to turn a locomotive and 4-5 car passenger consist.

Note that the end of the tail track comes very close to the D&RG Ibex branch line track at its east end.  There is an indication of a retaining wall (stone vs cribbing) at the very end of the tail track suggesting that it is at a higher elevation than the D&RG track. It can't be very high, as the D&RG track curves around back to the west and crosses the D&RG mainline at grade, just north of the C&S wye.

I don't want to seem argumentative about this point. I have no certainty whether wyeing the passenger train before arriving at the depot was the common operational move. The train may have gone straight to the depot locomotive first to unload passengers, mail and express, then the crew may have backed the train to the wye, turned it and then spotted it back at the depot for the next days departure, before tying up for the day..

I've read somewhere that the passenger train was turned on the wye in Leadville -- can't remember where, can't locate that reference. But it was common to turn passenger consists intact rather than switch the cars about, to rearrange the position of the head end cars in the train.  The D&RGW turned the San Juan at Durango by using the balloon loop west of the round house. At Santa Fe, the passenger train (later mixed) went straight down Guadalupe St to the joint depot (is it still Tomasito's Mexican restaurant today?), then backed to the wye at the north end of town, was turned, then spent the night there, backing down to the depot the next morning for loading.

Why was there a wye at Leadville, if not to turn trains, like the passenger consist or a rotary train. It is also easier for the hostler to turn a string of locomotives on the wye, than to turn each on the "armstrong" turntable, one by one.

Anyways, this may just be making too fine a point of all this.  By the mid 1930's the crews may have found it easier to just switch the 2 car passenger train to rearrange the consist, rather than all the backing moves to the wye. I was hoping that Mike might have picked up some "oral" history from the C&S crews as to how they turned things in Leadville.

[Mike Trent]

OK, Jim, here ya go:

Train No 70, Engine #537 arrives at Dickey today:



Meets Extra #71-#69 East:



Lord knows what will happen when Keith's guys get this train ready for tomorrow. Guess we'll find out about 10:40AM!

[Jim Courtney]

Beautiful models, Mike.

That backdrop really makes the scene come to life!

[Keith Hayes]

Mike, if ya can get me the train on time, I can run the whole works down to the wye. But if your late, the train leaves with the express end in front. Besides, Mrs. Little doesn't like the train running back and forth in front of her house, and the fireman is anxious to visit his girlfriend.

There us a lot going on in Leadville.

[Mike Trent]

OK, well today's train came in, on time, and as usual, brings an odd and unexpected twist to the discussion.

I'm getting ready to work on ground cover, so the screws and lines will soon be buried in dirt, cinders and weeds.  I'll post first a retouched photo of today's train so that it's easier ignore the unsightly corner in the clouds (sounds like a lyrical line from the 60's, somehow... what a surprise!)

Simmering at the Depot:

 

Unretouched:

Look carefully, yes, I painted the roof red all those ages ago. Hol Wagner said that red cab roofs were beginning to appear here and there on the Burlington  system in the late 30's, so yes, the 537's cab roof may have been red when it came out of the C&S Shops. That's all I needed to hear. I wanted to paint it red because all of the Burlington and C&S engines I remember from growing up in Boulder were red, and this is more or less a tribute to them as well. But this engine was pretty heavily weathered, the C&S shops were not as careful to keep this old girl looking her best over the years, so it's pretty hard to tell. Hol got a kick out of that, because that's all he ever remembered too.

Corner clouds, huge manhole sized screw holes, etc.....



Leaving Dickey:

I noticed that Coach 70 was running "B" end first, same as it was yesterday, but the Baggage and Mail was running RPO end reversed. Curious, I asked the Conductor about why that was, and he just said that they can't get the marker lights off because some idiot welded them on. Sheesh! Who'da thunk? So, apologies to Mrs Little. Probably be best not to tell her that. So the mystery only deepens.

 

[Jim Courtney]

Mike,

I like that B&W "Burlington Route" herald on the tender. Kinda reminds me of the Boston & Maine tender herald somehow.

Curious, I looked back at the Otto Perry photos on the first page of this thread. It looks to me that the first tender on 537, the one that became the basis for number 70's oil tender, did have a faint red outline around the herald.

But, sure 'nough, Otto's later photos of the second tender appear only to be black and white, like a boxcar herald.

Beautiful, beautiful modeling.

[Mike Trent]

Thanks, Jim. I appreciate your comments.

And you nailed it exactly, that's just what it is/was. A boxcar herald.

[Jim Courtney]

Another eBay print for sale, just listed:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Print-Photograph-Colorado-Southern-Burlington-RR-Leased-Engine-Bailey-/232426406646?hash=item361db182f6:g:-NgAAOSwHEZZeiOw





Another view of 537 at the head of a passenger train.  The photo is a Digerness reproduction from one of the Mineral Belt series of books.

Richard B Jackson is the photographer, the date is given is 1937. To me the photo seems earlier as 537 is pulling a long passenger train, with an express car at the head end. The lodge at Baileys had burned down before 1930. Perhaps this is a special passenger movement to Glen Isle lodge or Shawnee lodge further west.

I scanned this companion photo from the same day:


Richard B Jackson photo in Digerness, The Mineral Belt Volume I.

The photo in the book is dated 1932. The passenger train was still daily except Sunday in 1932, the R-P-O only going as far as Como.

There are at least two head end cars on the train, I can't tell if the second car is an R-P-O or another express car. If it's an R-P-O, this would be the west bound daily passenger with extra coaches to accommodate an overflow crowd. If not it would likely be a passenger special. The 537 and train are on the main in front of the little depot at Baileys. It is not clear if Baileys is the destination, or whether the train is waiting for a meet.

I guess another possibility is that this is a Sunday "Fish Train", running as far as Grant, returning to Denver early on Monday morning. There are several references to freight engines being used on Fish Trains.

Anyone know the exact date and circumstances of this photo?

[Jim Courtney]

I'd forgotten about these two photos a few pages back from the above photo at Baileys:





Both photos by Richard B Jackson in Digerness, The Mineral Belt Volume I.


This tends to clarify things . . . number 537 isn't flying extra flags, and the second head end car looks to be R-P-O 13, running ass backwards, westbound out of Denver.

So this has to be the daily westbound passenger train, with extra coaches (I count 5 total) to handle a large crowd this 1932 day.
Richard Jackson must be pacing the train in a car, on highway 285 (or its predecessor). Location is probably upper Platte Canon, between Shawnee and Grant.

Number 537 was likely used as power for this long train, to avoid double heading two of the 2-6-0s.

Don't you wish you could have ridden the train that day??

[Mike Trent]

Jim, I am going to take a shot and guess the extra cars and the baggage car were for a Boy Scout event.

The photo at Bailey's definitely shows a number of kids in the windows and they all look like boys of the same age to me. A long week or weekend at Shawnee or Glen Isle would have been a grand thing indeed. The extra cars were no doubt set off somewhere, probably Como, and switched back into the Eastbound consist to pick them up on their return.

Being well into the depression, this may have been a way to generate some income for one of those spots.

[Southpark]

I will offer another thought on the last two photos.  If those are "kids" on the train a logical distention would be Cassells(Santa Maria).
The curves look very much like the curves between Kline(todays Singleton) and Weller(Chase), all just mile or so east of Cassells.  The extra coaches and baggage cars could then be set off at Grant.  The Cassells wait station is still in place.  Some Boy Scout historian would have an answer-----maybe.
Tom

[Jim Courtney]

Mike and SP,

I thought that the camp at Santa Maria was an operation of the Catholic Church, so the kids wouldn't have to necessarily Boy Scouts.

Your explanations to the photos make sense, would explain the extra express car on the head end, to handle the kids luggage and camping gear.

I would agree that it is unlikely that the 537 would haul an empty express car and 3 or 4 empty coaches over Kenosha. Setting out the cars for the campers return trip at Grant would make sense, too, as crews commonly did that with the Fish Train consists.  They likely backed the empty coaches onto the west track of the wye, then switched out the express car as well, leaving the entire consist spotted on the tail track of the wye.  An east bound passenger or a light engine from Como could then back into the east leg of the Grant wye, couple onto the consist, and proceed to Santa Maria to load the east bound returning campers.

Fascinating speculation!

Interesting that the 537 served as passenger power in the 1930's on at least a couple of occasions--wonder why she was selected for these chores??

Also note the "537" stenciled on the pilot, so when it was removed in Denver, for a plow to be fitted, the round house crew could keep track of it.

[Mike Trent]

Hi Jim, hadn't thought about Santa Maria. Could be. I'm still thinking Boy Scouts, maybe we could google Boy Scout Jamboree Denver 1932....

As to the stenciled number, good eye, duly noted. It's a little weathered, but it's there. The day I picked this engine up in St Louis from the guy who had bought it from Tom Marsh and had it for a few years, I showed that to him. He was really surprised. He said he'd looked at it a thousand times, but never saw that little number.  

By the way, I use a Galaxy S7, and the lens distorts angles. I noticed this same cockeyed look to the cinder catcher on one of the pictures last week. Thought I better mention it. My old Galaxy S Zero had a much better lens.  

[Keith Hayes]

You know my song: the tail track of the wye is too short for all those cars.

[ComoDepot]

It is an independent foundation connected to the Catholic Church, about that time the old resort was used for hosting underprivileged children from Denver so could be that.

[Chris Walker]

Jim,

I have come to thinking that the Ronfor photo is indeed entering Leadville and was taken on the Little Evans Gulch fill East of the Wye at the location on this Google Maps snip.  39.261554, -106.282806

Notice that the fill isn't very high, and actually has a V-taper the ground rising upwards to either side so I doubt that it was on the Wye as you suggested.  Keep in mind that the present SG Wye would have wider radius curvature and is closer somewhat to the Roundhouse.