Steam & Excursion > A Big Railroad Showing It's Past Through It's Small Beginnings!

Many mainline railroads often found time to celebrate the milestones of their operating history in some meaningful way to their customers and the public in generally.  The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad was certainly one not to pass up such an opportunity as we see here.

With WW-2 winding down in 1945 the D&RG decided it was appropriate to celebrate it's 75th anniversary with a display train of it's own heritage that would travel around it's system.  In order to show how far the D&RG had come as a mainline railroad they took the time to refurbish one of it's oldest pieces of motive power, narrow gauge 2-8-0 #268 along with a set of narrow gauge freight an passenger cars and have them mounted on standard gauge flat cars to make up the display train.

In this photo we see #268 with her display train parked at the D&RG depot at Salt Lake City, Utah while on her 75th anniversary tour.  Clearly, the railroad pulled out all the stops to make the 1882 Baldwin-built Consolidation look as clean and proper as possible.  This refurbishment, together with her later service at the Chicago Railroad Fair may explain why it was #268 that became the very last D&RGW narrow gauge 2-8-0 to be in active service for the railroad.  This last duty that she was called on to perform was to power the train that was used to scrap the Crested Butte Branch of the D&RGW.

Today,  #268 is back serving as part of a display train, just like she did in 1945.  She is beautifully painted and preserved under cover with a narrow gauge train set at the Gunnison Pioneer Museum.  We are lucky that we still have her to remind us of the humble beginnings of the D&RG.

Martin



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/19 08:10 by LoggerHogger.

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Here is the same engine in Gunnison in 2016.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/19 20:52 by Mudrock.

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Man, wouldn't it be great if the Cumbres & Toltec could get that engine.

Looks as though the cylindrical tank mounted on the rear of the tender is considerably larger in Chris' 2016 photo than it was in 1945.
What is its purpose? I'm guessing main reservoir, possibly only reservoir?

Charlie

Entirely different tender, and yes it is the main reservoir.