Western Railroad Discussion > Rio Grande Head on...Movie scene

Was watching the 1950's movie by Paramount on the Denver and Rio Grande and noticed the real cornfield meet staged in it.

I discovered the actual numbers of the locos used in the wreck that may interest some here....

drgw319 and drgw345

In the movie 345 was made up as Sant Fe #268,i think 319 kept it's drgw# however.

What i would be interested in knowing if the locos were scrapped or ran again as they were not that badly wrecked.They both stayed on the line but the cabs were demolished and boilers knocked off the frames.

IIRC both were scrapped. The dome rings and maybe some other parts from the 345 were used to partially restore sister 346, then at the Narrow Guage Museum in Alamosa and now at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO, to its "Rio Grande" appearance, which had been altered significantly during rebuilding by C&S after 346 ran away and derailed on Kenosha Pass in 1938(?); it had been leased to C&S for helper service on the South Park line.

All this is pulled out of dusty memory (yeah, I know I oughta look it up but the Donkeys start in 5 minutes) so I will certainly stand corrected!

lowwater