Nostalgia & History > Denver South Park and Pacific Railroad

I also found a photo with a picture of Mac Poor.

Picture 2, “Call Number: RR-2129. Title: D&RGW. Creator(s): Richardson, Robert W. Summary: Members of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club pose in front of Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad caboose #0574 at the railroad yard in Salida (Chaffee County), Colorado. The men are identified as: Ed Haley, Dick Kindig, Irv August, Mac Poor, Morris Abbott, Jack Riley and Dan Peterson. Some of the men hold cameras. The men gather to ride the last train over Marshall Pass, round trip to Sargents, Colorado. Date: 1955 May 2. Title, descriptive information and ‘Not pictured: Bob Richardson, Jack Thorpe (who arranged trip in special caboose)’ penciled on negative envelope. Physical Description: 1 negative; 11 x 7 cm. (4 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.).”

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Donald Ray Burger has a website, “Chronology of the Colorado & Southern.”

http://www.burger.com/cschron.htm

Some chronology relatable to this posting taken from the above website.

May 18, 1874: First rails layed for DSP&P.
March 3, 1880: DSP&P tracks reached Buena Vista.
July 2, 1880: DSP&P began service from Denver to Malta (3 miles south of Leadville).
1881: UP assumed control of the DSP&P.
May, 1888: DSP&P went into receivership.
August 1889: Denver, Leadville & Gunnison Railway formed to operate over the old DSP&P tracks.
1893: Silver Panic of '93.
October 13, 1893: Union Pacific placed in receivership.
August 4, 1894: Denver, Leadville & Gunnison Railway went into receivership.

Perhaps in the text to Picture 6, Denver Public Library photo WHJ-10125, in my posting on “Railroad Snow Removal” the statement, ‘Ed: Substitute South Pk for UP. Use Jackson's title. View on South Park Railway. Rotary on its way to Alpine Tunnel when track was covered with three inches of ice. April 18, 1890. Cr. line. Wm Henry Jackson photo. M C Poor collection. Ed: Mr. Jackson gave me this photograph.’, should read Ed:Substitute Denver, Leadville & Gunnison Railway for UP rather than “Ed: Substitute South Pk for UP.”

In Picture 3, Denver Public Library photo WHJ-10118, shown below the location is given as above St. Elmo.

Picture 3 enlarged 40%, “Call Number: WHJ-10118. Title: View on U.P. [sic] Railway, above St. Elmo showing where Jull Plow failed after making ten different attacks with four powerful engines average depth of snow 18 inches. Creator(s): Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942. Summary: Men pose in the plowed snow on Denver South Park and Pacific Railway track near St. Elmo, Chaffee County, Colorado. Date: 1890 April 16. Condition: discolored. Title printed on front of mat board. Physical Description: 1 photoprint; 12 x 17 cm. (5 x 7 in.) mounted on mat board.”



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/12 13:33 by flynn.

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Wikipedia has a webpage on the Rotary snowplow,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_snowplow

The following excerpts are from the above webpage,

“The rotary was invented by Toronto, Ontario, Canada dentist J.W. Elliot in 1869, however he never built a working model or prototype. Orange Jull of Orangeville, Ontario, expanded on Elliot's design, building working models he tested with sand. During the winter of 1883-1884, Jull contracted with the Leslie Brothers of Toronto to build a full-size prototype that proved successful. Jull later sold his design rights to Leslie Brothers, who formed the Rotary Steam Shovel Manufacturing Company in Paterson, New Jersey. Leslie Brothers contracted with Cooke Locomotive & Machine Works in Paterson to do the actual construction.”

I did a Google Search for Jull Plow and got the following webpage,

http://www.hazegray.org/rail/snow/rotary

The following excerpt is from the above webpage,

“Rotary plows, developed in 1883 by Orange Jull and marketed by the Leslie Brothers, are the largest of pieces of railroad snowfighting equipment. These behemoths can throw snow hundreds of feet from the tracks and can clear a swath through a dozen or more feet of snow. Due to operating expenses, however, they rarely see service. A measure of their importance can be seen in the fact that Union Pacific and BNSF each have no fewer than 10 rotaries available. Today most rotaries are powered by electricity supplied from a trailing locomotive, a specially converted power car, or an internal diesel engine. Several steam powered rotaries survive, and a few are operable today.”

Picture 4 is from the above website.

Picture 4, “Edward Leslie poses with an early rotary plow. It is not clear which plow this is; although it appears to be marked as a company demonstration unit, it definitely is not the original prototype rotary plow. It could be one of the plows displayed at the 1893 Columbian World Exposition in Chicago. Photo: Leslie family, courtesy of Allan Leslie.”

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Picture 5 is from the following website, [Click on St. Elmo]

http://www.narrowgauge.org/ngc/html/excursion4/excursion4-tkc-4.html

Picture 5, “On April 16, 1890, The Denver South Park & Pacific held snow plow trials. The photo below was taken on the first day of three during the trials. The Jull proved to be unsatisfactory on the pass due to the curves, poor rail, and numerous derailments. St. Elmo is visable in the distance.”

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Picture 6 is from the following website,

http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20040909/LIFE/109090004

Picture 6, “Central Pacific's rotary snowplow Number 2 pauses on Donner Summit in this undated photo. By courtesy Truckee Donner Historical Society.”

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The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel newspaper online, October 13, 2012 has an article, “Glenwood Canyon project proving its worth. Freeway celebrates 20 years as vital transportation corridor.“ The article has pictures.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/twenty-years-later-glenwood-canyon-project-proving

The following excerpt is from the above article.

“When Dick Prosence was pursuing an Interstate 70 project in Glenwood Canyon decades ago, he remembers one state highway commissioner quipping that for the proposed price tag, they could pave the highway with silver dollars.

Almost a half-billion dollars later, the interstate through the canyon opened 20 years ago today [October 13, 2012].

These days, it’s hard to find critics of the engineering and design feat that was the Glenwood Canyon project. But debate over whether to route the interstate there, and how it should be built, was fierce before the project received final approval in the late 1970s. That’s when Prosence, now an 88-year-old Meeker retiree, was district engineer in northwest Colorado for what then was the Colorado Department of Highways.

“It was a raging battle during ‘76 and ‘77. Every time some of the environmental organizations would come up with some argument why it shouldn’t be done we would think about what we would do to counter those arguments. We did all kinds of innovative things,” Prosence said.”

The map in the above article is difficult to read so I copied the map and enlarged it and cut it in half. Picture 7 is the left side of the map and Picture 8 is the right side.

Picture 7, Right side.

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Picture 8, Left side.

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Wasn't I-70 through that canyon the last part of the entire interstate highway system to get built?

From the following website,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70

“Though disputed, the Federal Highway Administration has claimed the section of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, completed in 1992, was the last piece of the Interstate Highway system, as originally planned, to open to traffic.”

From the following website,

http://logistics.about.com/od/legalandgovernment/a/Interstate-Highway-System.htm

“Although the 1992 opening of the I-70 at Glenwood Canyon, Colorado was publicized nationwide as the final part of interstate highway system to be completed, that is actually incorrect. Officially the project has not been completed as there is still parts of the I-95 north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a part of the I-70 in Breezewood, Pennsylvania, that are unfinished.”

From the following website,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

“October 14, 1992—The original Interstate Highway system is proclaimed to be complete with the opening of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado. This section is considered an engineering marvel with a 12-mile (19 km) span featuring 40 bridges and numerous tunnels and is one of the most expensive rural highways per mile built in the United States. Although this was claimed the final section of Interstate Highway to open, at the time this section was dedicated there were still missing interchanges elsewhere in the system, making some Interstate Highways not contiguous.”

“The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over 12 years; it ended up costing $114 billion (adjusted for inflation, $425 billion in 2006 dollars and took 35 years.”

“1992–present

Although the system was proclaimed complete in 1992, two of the original interstates, I-95 and I-70, are not contiguous because they are missing interchanges. Both of these discontinuities are due to local opposition which has blocked efforts to build the necessary connections to fully complete the system.

Because of the cancellation of the Somerset Freeway, I-95 is discontinuous in New Jersey. Authorized by the federal government in 2004, the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project is scheduled to connect the separate sections of I‑95 to form a continuous route, completing the final section of the original plan. Construction began in 2010.

There is a missing interchange between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-70 near Breezewood, Pennsylvania, where traffic must use a few blocks of US 30, which are cluttered with services, to rejoin I-70. Although solutions have been proposed through the years to complete the discontinuity on I-70, they have been blocked by local opposition.

Additional spurs and loops/bypasses remain under construction, such as I-485 in North Carolina, which has been under construction since the 1980s. A few main routes not part of the original plan remain under construction, such as I-22 in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, and the extension of I-69 from Indiana to Texas. Officials have also identified some non-Interstate corridors for future inclusion into the system, either by construction of new Interstate routes or upgrade of existing roads to Interstate standards.”

that is kinda a moving statement as I70 was originally, and for awhile, just plotted to end in DEnver