Category: Articles

Syd Schofield

Editors note: Welcome to the 13^th 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.

Another extension of the D&RG three foot gauge common carrier was the Lake City Branch. It extended south of the line along the Gunnison River from a point near Sapinero on now what is US 50 in central Colorado just west of Gunnison. The junction point is presently under Blue Mesa Reservoir as is the original town site and the road bed extending into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River turning out at Cimarron. The branch line extended to the small town of Lake City where, as a regional center for the area mines, loggers and ranchers provided some income to the railroad.

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Syd Schofield

Editors note: Welcome to the twelfth 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.

Most of the narrow gauge railroad models are based on steam powered locomotives. Since most of these steam systems are total loss, sources of water for the steam systems need to be strategically located for ready access. In later years some larger locomotives and longer trains brought the facilities requirements up to par with the standard gauge railroads. For locomotives based on other power plants (for example internal combustion and electric), incidental need for water as a coolant was much less of a problem. So the need for adequate water supplies available to the locomotive and along the route of operation require special consideration.

The weight of water in the boiler and the tender add to the burden of carriage. This is partially offset by the adhesion gained by the driving wheels of the locomotive but is purely dead weight in the tender. Curiously, where the configuration has driving wheels supporting the supply water (e.g. a saddle tank locomotive) there is diminishing adhesion offsetting the additional load with full tanks.

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Syd Schofield

Editors note: Welcome to the eleventh 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.

As the common carrier railroads grew to service larger and wider areas than the linear path from A (departure) to B (destination), the construction of a branch line followed, at least when the market supported and the terrain allowed. Railroads often pursued interesting routes to get to the destination in the shortest distance, frequently in a path unsuitable to the standard gauge requirements. In the case of access to the mines near Westcliffe and Silver Cliff in the Wet Mountain Valley, the surveyors chose the Grape Creek Canyon. This area is in south central Colorado from the Royal Gorge route of the Denver & Rio Grande, then a dual gauge line. In the challenging accomplishments building the line along the Arkansas River through the Gorge (running gun battles with rival railroad construction crews notwithstanding), it probably didn’t seem too difficult a task for the veteran builders.

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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.

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Syd Schofield

Editors note: Welcome to the ninth 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.

In the early days of railroading the track gauge was still up for grabs in many areas and the idea of rolling stock interchange was a question of common track gauge. The typical accommodation is to install dual gauge track. While there were a few exceptions where some lines actually had provisions for swapping the undercarriage on rolling stock to accommodate the gauge change, the Russians and Chinese actually still do that on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Then, too, they have more serious cultural and political problems than did the North American lines where the typical accommodation was a dual gauge track. There were a few lines in the Colorado neighborhood that did exchange equipment on cooperative business arrangements too complex for this discussion.

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