Climbing the Mountains on the Colorado Midland - Arlene Lanman

Climbing the Mountains on the Colorado Midland (eBook)

Arlene Lanman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
534 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-8300-8 (ISBN)

The goal of this 534 page book was to tell the story of the Colorado Midland/Midland Terminal from the viewpoint of the Chief Engineers. The Book has three main Divisions: (1) 60% dedicated to the 'What, When, Where, and Why' it was formed, (2) 15% dedicated to the 'Who' - the people who financed, controlled and supported the railroad, and (3) 25% dedicated to the 'How' - Engineering aspects of designing and building the railroad. The story presents the viewpoint of Management and how Engineering influenced their decisions. The story includes why the train stopped at the many towns along the way - what the people were doing there and how the stations were named. The book includes 0ver 330 photographs used both within other Colorado Midland historic narratives and several additional photos that were found by the Author, including several maps to further depict the final route and the many alternate survey routes proposed by the Survey Team and Layout Engineers. Nearly all the photos were colorized by the Author to project today's views. Writing the book was a festinating step into the early history of Colorado. The quest was to answer my many questions, including: •Why the CM started with Palmer and the Kansas Pacific •Why Colorado City was chosen as a Division point •Why J.J. Hagerman had a grudge against Palmer and the D&RG •Why the CM hauled load after load of coal and ore and how the ore was refined •Why the D&RG seemed to always get the best route for their roadbed •Which CM President inadvertently build a haunted house •Who were the competition •Why did the CM go to Aspen and took the 'hard way' •What part did Rathbone & Brothers Co. of Liverpool & London play in the routes to Glenwood Springs and Aspen •Who was Henry Wigglesworth and what did he do •What indirect part did the Gould's play in the ownership changes - who was really 'pulling the strings' •How was the route chosen - who said to cross the Continental Divide twice •How were the l

It was February 6, 1949 when the last passenger train ran on the historic Midland Terminal. The train was filled to capacity - 169 passengers. One could not have asked for a better day. A bright sun shone down out of an almost cloudless sky making perfect visibility for photographs. One would never forget the people along the line who waved at the passengers while taking a final look at "e;their train."e; Or the many motorists who paced the train on the adjoining highway (US-24 and SH 61). I have no recollection of this memorial event; I was three years old. What I do remember is that our home in Old Colorado City was less than three blocks from the abandoned railroad bed and five blocks from the abandoned roundhouse and machine shop. As youth, we "e;toured"e; the inside of the abandoned buildings and walked the "e;line"e; to nearly the town of Cascade, over the "e;double-dare"e; Crystal Park Trestle/Viaduct (93x19 Frame, 151x46 Frame, 64x46 Deck Girder, 95x18 Pile) and through the eight tunnels in Ute Pass. The remainder of the "e;line"e; was viewed from my parent's car; they, too, where remembering their past. As a structural engineer, I have been captivated by the many engineering feats accomplished by the Colorado Midland design engineers. Over the last several months I have studied and visited many of the railroad sites and, in doing so, I recall things that I knew and many things that I did not know were revealed by my study. My emphasis was to tell the story from an Chief Design Engineer's perspective and to learn why the train stopped at the many towns along the way - what were the people doing there and how did the stops get their names - this was a fascinating step into the past and early history of Colorado as a Territory and then as a State. The quest was to answer my many questions, including: Why the CM started with Palmer & the Kansas Pacific Why Colorado City was chosen as a Division hub Why J.J. Hagerman had a grudge against Palmer and the D&RG Why the CM committed the railroad equivalent of "e;claim-jumping"e; What station was named after a political cartoonist What was behind the major search for coal (Jerome Park, Coal Basin, South Canyon, New Castle) and why each of three mines in Jerome Park produced a different grades of coal How did the stations get their names - station history Who was Samuel S. Sands, why was a station named in his honor, why did S.S. Sands Company buy all of the Collateral Trust Notes in 1891, essentially owning the CM for a short period of time What part did the Grand River Coal and Coke, and the CF&I play - who was Charles Osgood Why the Midland was called the "e;Cattlemen's Railroad"e; Why the CM hauled load after load of gold ore and how the gold ore was processed at both the Mine and in Colorado City Why the D&RG seemed to always get the better route for their railbed Why were J.J. Hill (Great Northern and Northern Pacific, as well as the Chicago Burlington and Quincy) and Henry Thumbull (Consolidator/Receiver for the Union Pacific Denver & Gulf and the Leadville & Gunnison) interested in the Colorado Midland (and the D&RG/D&RGW) Who were the primary players Who was supported by the Colorado Midland Who were the competition Which CM President inadvertently built a haunted house - the inspiration for the "e;Changeling"e; Why did the CM go to Aspen and took the "e;hard way"e; What part did Rathbone & Brothers Co. of Liverpool & London play in the routes to Glenwood Springs and Aspen What bankrupted Jerome Wheeler and what saved J.J. Hagerman What indirect part did the Gould's play in the ownership changes - who was really "e;pulling the strings"e; Why are there many locations named "e;Hayden"e; Who was Henry Wigglesworth and what did he do How was the route chosen - who said to cross the Continental Divide more than once What was Carlton's plan, in May of 1917, to extent the line to Salt Lake City to connect with the UP; a plan preempted by the US

INTRODUCTION – CLIMBING THE MOUNTAINS

The economic potential of booming mining camps inspired the Board of Directors of Colorado Springs’ First National Bank to build a standard-gauge railroad through the Rockies. They believed they could provide the mountain region with better equipment and service than the region’s narrow gauge railroads were already doing. The optimistic capitalists of “Little London” soon learned some hard lessons about pitting money and machinery against the high country.

In 1885, they elected John James Hagerman as president of their proposed Colorado Midland Railway (CM), a year after he arrived in Colorado. He was in his forties, had already made a nice fortune in iron mining on Michigan’s mostly-flat Upper Peninsula but was seeking a cure for his tuberculosis. Once in the Pikes Peak Region, he energetically set about leading the railroad project and raising capital.

The initial objective was revenues from Leadville and Aspen, along with coal from around Redstone and New Castle – where Hagerman invested – and from agriculture. Arranging a traffic agreement with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, the Midland was competing with the roundabout narrow-gauge Denver & Rio Grande, which, despite its earlier start, still barely beat the CM into Aspen. At the urging of and financial support by the Rathbone Brothers Company, the line was extended to Glenwood Springs to help grow its economy and that of the Colorado River Valley (then called the Grand River).

The CM’s original plan was to build to Salt Lake City after reaching New Castle and Grand Junction but it became financially impossible for both the Midland and the D&RG. The Colorado Midland and the D&RG jointly built and shared the line from Gramid (west of New Castle) to Grand Junction. The joint route was the Rio Grande Junction Railroad, built in 1882.

FINANCIAL CHALLENGES

•The CMR was costly to construct, and overall did not receive as great a quantity of traffic as had originally been hoped for; the line was bedeviled by financial difficulties right from opening to closure, and spent much time as a -- usually nominally independent -- "football" being kicked around between bigger and more powerful neighboring railways.

•After an initial couple of years' of being truly independent, the CMR was sold in 1890 to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. J.J. Hagerman made his second fortune and left the company.

•In part as a result of financially troublous times for the whole country -- the 1893 Silver Panic -- the CMR (and its "parent" Santa Fe) went into receivership; trains continued to run, and better prosperity slowly returned, but the Midland ended up being sold in 1897 to a wealthy entrepreneur, one Henry T. Rogers, and reverted to life as an independent outfit, once more opting for the title of "Railway".

•This genuine independence was, again, short-lived. The CMR's two nearby older and larger "frenemies" -- the Denver & Rio Grande / Denver & Rio Grande Western, and the Colorado & Southern -- had ideas of profiting by acquiring the Midland: it was sold to them in 1900, with each company having half ownership -- the CMR remained nominally independent. This situation was characterized by ups-and-downs from various causes: on a generally downward slope, however -- from about 1908, things began to be a financial drain for the "Midland" part of the joint undertaking.

•Early in 1917, the CMR was foreclosed on by the financiers. It went to auction, and was rescued by a rich entrepreneur -- not the Mr. Rogers of twenty years previously, but one Albert Carlton. This gentleman very effectively used his considerable "clout" to regain traffic for the CMR, and to improve the railway's physical condition. Sadly, though -- among the very many nasty attributes of the First World War, it was shortly to deal an all-but death blow to this, it would seem, predestined unlucky rail undertaking.

•The USA entered the war in April 1917; very late in that year, the nation's railways were, as a wartime measure, temporarily nationalized under the United States Railroad Administration (USRA). The shortsighted USRA noted that the shortest distance across Colorado (Grand Junction to Denver) was over the Colorado Midland – apparently, their map did not indicate the mountains. The USRA routed nearly all cross-continent traffic -- including "all government mail and freight over the Midland. This proved a burden too great for the CMR -- short of motive power and staff, and with track and equipment still in indifferent condition caused traffic to backlog, and the consignments were not getting through as desired. Winter 1917 / 18's being a hard one, did not help. USRA inspectors concluded that the D&RG, despite its longer route, was after all more capable of doing the job. In the spring of 1918 the original policy was reversed, and the transit traffic was sent over the D&RG. As one source puts it, "With traffic suddenly gone, the railroad was back in receivership again as of July 1918." Albert Carlton was appointed as receiver, and ordered to stop operating the railway in early August. This had to be done -- all services on the railway, ceased. There was hope that this might only be temporary for the duration of the war. Approaches were made to larger railway undertakings to take over the CMR -- nothing, however, came of these. Mr. Carlton, hoping against hope, long delayed scrapping of the CMR west of Divide; but in the summer of 1921, dismantling began -- deeding the right of way to the State of Colorado for highway purposes.

•In 1919 the Midland Terminal Railroad bought approximately 21 miles of the CMR between Colorado Springs and Divide, to ensure the maintenance of their connection with the continent's rail network. This "augmented" Midland Terminal Railroad, was then running between Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek, and continued to operate passenger services until 1931, and freight until 1949.

THE MIDLAND PRESENTED MANY ENGINEERING CHALLENGES

1.The Midland was an extraordinarily difficult railroad to operate, in large part because it had very little level track. In crossing Colorado, the line made three summits – at Hayden Divide, west of Colorado Springs, at Trout Creek Pass, and at Hagerman Pass on the Continental Divide. The Hagerman Tunnel was completed in 1887. In 1891, it was replaced by the Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel which was at a lower altitude. This shortened the line and made the grade easier, but the approaches to these summits were severe: eastbound trains faced an ascent of about twenty miles of three percent grades in the climb from Basalt to the western portal of the tunnel at Ivanhoe; westbound trains climbing out of the Arkansas River Valley faced a shorter but still difficult climb of 3.24%. The ascent from Colorado Springs to Divide was also severe, with several stretches of 4% grade and significant curvature.

2.At the time of its construction, the Midland was among the best-appointed roads in the United States. Ten of the locomotives it purchased in 1886 and 1887 (the Class 115 2-8-0s) were among the largest and most powerful of their type in the United States. Unfortunately, the Midland's cash situation militated against capital replacement, and most of the locomotives purchased in the road's first decade were still on the property when it closed in 1918. The Midland purchased its last locomotives, the Class 175 2-8-0s, in 1907; after that, the purchase of new power fell behind ordinary operations and maintenance expenses on the company's priority list, and was postponed in part because of concerns about the ability of the roadbed and track to support heavier equipment. At the outbreak of the First World War, the road's chief mechanical officer proposed the immediate construction of a new class of engines (2-6-6-0) to handle the surging traffic, but the state of the road's physical plant (which urgently needed both maintenance and upgrading) was such that he limited his proposal to a copy of the D&RGW's C-48 class locomotives, a design that was thirteen years old and approaching obsolescence.

3.The Midland consisted of over 300 miles of track, with some sections of 4% grade where it crossed the Continental Divide at 12,000 feet. However, standard gauge railroads were not efficient at any grade over 2%, and this engineering flaw led to the Midland’s demise in 1918.

4.It had some practical, as well as aesthetic, positive attributes. Sadly, after the first years, less-good-than-hoped-for financial doings precluded particularly high-class motive power. And, the CMR's being built from the first to standard gauge resulted in more solid and stable routing than with the lines, quite often closely parallel with the CMR's, of its sometimes "mirror twin", the Denver & Rio Grande. In parallel-routes situations, the CMR's lines tended to be higher up in grade in relation to watercourses, than the earlier...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	27.7.2021
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Technik
ISBN-10	1-0983-8300-1 / 1098383001
ISBN-13	978-1-0983-8300-8 / 9781098383008

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