Syd Schofield

Editors note: Welcome to the tenth article of a series on narrow gauge by Syd Schofield. The previous article is available by clicking here, or by filtering with the category “Narrow Gauge”. Syd welcomes discussions and feedback, which can be made by clicking on the comment link at the bottom of the post.

Some of the terrain crossed by the narrow gauge railroads had easy grades for long distances. Small locomotives (the miniatures previously mentioned) were adequate. However, when push came to shove (or push and shove) was required for a steeper grade, a helper locomotive station was often built. This localized the operation of the enhanced motive power and kept the costs to a minimum as the added fuel and operation was only used briefly. Such was the standard practice that a town in central Utah (Helper, Utah) is actually named for this activity. The grade to the west of town to Soldier Summit is the price (also a nearby town, Price) that the latecomer Denver and Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) paid for the otherwise easy route between Grand Junction and Salt Lake City.

A narrow gauge example can be found in Cimarron, Colorado as the D&RGW climbs out of the Gunnison River in the Black Canyon. The route was fairly easy down the canyon to that point before getting impossible in the heart of the Black Canyon (giving up the route just downstream of the Curecanti Needle). An observation station on the south side at the National Park will reveal the difficulty the surveyors encountered in going further downstream. The drive from US 50 is quite safe in comparison to the north side route as Colorado DOT has limited requirements for guardrails. The view is better but it is highly recommended to avoid for those with acrophobia and most definitely not to be done from west to east in a fog when snowing (and the adjacent precipice is hidden).

Here a small station is kept for the helper locomotives to double head over the Cerro Summit into Montrose. There is a display of several livestock cars at the ranger station on US 50 and a few miles down the Cimarron Canyon is the c-60 (later designated c-16 on some railroads) locomotive with a few cars. That train, similar to the display with the same type of locomotive can be seen at the museum in Gunnison. A more direct route to Montrose was eventually taken by a water supply tunnel downstream from Cimarron Canyon. For the DCC-equipped, some speed matching and Multiple Unit programming can provide some interesting operation using helper locomotives.