Re: DSP&P Passenger Car Research

Posted by Dave Eggleston on Mar 21, 2025; 11:06pm
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/DSP-P-Passenger-Car-Research-tp20585p20599.html

A small point: The DSP&P didn't merge with the Colorado Central in 1893. Now the longer story.

Once the South Park and Colorado Central were under full UP control in 1881/82 the use of equipment from each line on the other line became common. The UP viewed all equipment as under their control and thus moved equipment (engines, freight cars, passenger cars and non-revenue equipment) between its various subsidiaries, including other lines like the Utah & Northern and even the Nevada Central. By 1884 this was proving a headache because each line tended to have some car and engine numbering overlaps, which was a logistical nightmare. So in mid-1885 all equipment on the UP and its subsidiaries was renumbered, with cars and engines fitting into numbering slots assigned to each piece of the corporate collection.

This cleared up things and the interchange and reallocation of equipment between the subsidiaries continued, which included not only moving equipment where the business needed it but also moving equipment from narrow gauge subsidiaries that were standard gauged to subsidiaries that were still narrow gauge (so U&N and KC cars ended up in Colorado).

The UP was a financial disaster by the later 1880s and was reorganized starting in 1889 with the UP still in control of the receivership. The South Park parts became the DL&G, the CCRR parts were lumped in with a group of narrow and standard gauge lines to become a large organization with railroads stretching to Texas, the UPD&G.

The UP continued to mis-manage the business and in 1893 local Colorado interests managed to wrest control of the DL&G and UPD&G (all the narrow and standard gauge parts) and put it into the hands of a new, local receiver, Frank Tumbull, in 1894. He turned the lines around and in 1898 brought the lines out of receivership and purchased by a new corporation that Trumbull led named the Colorado & Southern, which, like the UP managed all the lines and moved equipment between the various bits as necessary.

In both the 1889 and 1893 receiverships, and even in the C&S takeover, the South Park parts were not the key interest as they had been money losers since at least 1883/84. The DL&G was under the control of the UPD&G in both cases and at both times the DL&G was a separate corporate entity from the UPD&G and there's some argument that in both cases there was interest in not including it at all. This also was considered when all was consolidated into the C&S.

So no merger of these lines technically.