The main building, which houses the museum, is on two floors. Artifacts are displayed nicely and cover a variety of road names, unlike the Union Pacific depot in Cheyenne. The favorite road name is Denver & Rio Grande, however, of which there is also Southern and Western naming appended to the DRG. There is also a library and roundhouse on the property.
The DRG was a narrow gauge line that wove it’s way around and through the mountains of Colorado. Later it switched over to standard gauge as construction techniques on right-of-way improved and integration with other systems made “going standard” a bit of a necessity. Many of the engines, cars, and cabooses on the grounds are of narrow gauge design. As a result, the wheels, trucks, cars, etc. were all smaller in scale compared to standard gauge cars. Even the cattle cars seemed to be made for shorter animals.
We walked around the grounds where both standard and narrow gauge equipment is displayed. Near the roundhouse the tracks can accommodate both widths of track. Below are a few photos of what can be seen. Though much of the equipment is weathered, it is possible to see a great variety of equipment. A true rail buff would think he had found “the mother load” because there are engines and cars of all types including bobber, drover, and more typical cabooses.
Engine #40 is a standard gauge locomotive built by the Baldwin
Locomotive Works in Philadelphia.
A “bobber” caboose; notice the frame is attached to
four wheels instead of two trucks with bogies with four wheels
per truck. These often rode roughly but served their purpose on
shorter, narrow gauge trains.
This restored Kitchen car is interesting in size.
note how closely to the ground it sits and how
Martha, who is 5' 3", is almost as tall as the
side walls of the work car. This is typical of
narrow gauge equipment; reduced in scale.
This CB&Q business car has received some TLC. From current brochures,
the interior of this car looks as classy now as when it was built
nearly 100 years ago. The museum’s volunteers do restorations
in the roundhouse which was added a dozen years ago.
A complete consist (train and engine) sits on a siding making an excellent
subject for photographs. The engine has been restore and can be used
for excursions and “steam up” days.
Though there is a greater amount of steam locomotives, there are
also vintage diesel engines on display such as this pair of
Rio Grand F9 A & B units. The engines once pulled the Zephyr passenger
train between Denver and Salt Lake City. The Rio Grande Zephyr
was the last non-Amtrak, intercity passenger
train in the United States. These units were refurbished and
repainted around twelve years ago.
A sad fact of railway museums is that there are too many of them for the amount of funding required for restoration and maintenance. As a result, most of them have a lot of equipment rusting or rotting one day at a time. There seems to be no shortage of volunteers, however. The saving grace of this museum is that it does have several steam engines in working condition and enough passenger cars to make weekly and special occasion trips a viable source of some funding.
The museum also has an extensive HO model railroad in the basement offering a great overview of railroad operations in the Rockies. Though not running when we were present, they also have a nice G-guage (garden) layout under shade.
The Denver Garden Railway Society’s G-gauge exhibit at
the Colorado Railroad Museum.
Since this was Monday, Martha had work to do as did Byron. Martha’s pays. Byron’s doesn’t. We returned before noon and went about our separate tasks. Martha transcribed doctor’s reports while Byron updated the website of the GMC Great Lakers.
Tomorrow we head to Colorado Springs. Or, as the locals call it, The Springs.
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