Steam at Colorado Railroad Museum

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

The most recent posting about progress on the restoration of Rio Grande Southern #20 being done at Strasburg is interesting. The wife and I made a "quick" Amtrak trip out to Denver from Chicago last week to catch two White Sox-Rockies games and got a chance to do a few other things too while we were there, one of which was a rather short visit to CRM in Golden. While there, talked to a member of the museum who was working on the cab of D&RGW 2-8-2 #491. He told me that the plan is to have three operable narrow gauge steamers at the museum; D&RGW #346, RGS #20 and the 491. I guess I was a bit surprised by that, because I didn't realize that 491 was being restored to service. Don't recall much info about it, unlike the updates here on RyPN about RGS #20. Perhaps I missed a thread, although I tried to check out old threads, and really didn't find anything. Anyone care to offer some info on the current status of the 491? The work being done on putting new wood in the cab interior was impressive, but other work is obviously also being done.

Thanks.

Les

Bulby · **Joined:** Tue Nov 12, 2013 6:45 pm **Posts:** 258

Les,

See messages at (over on the narrow gauge disscussion board):

http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php ... msg-250367

http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php ... msg-262162

http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php ... msg-246428

These cover the current condition of the locomotive, most recent post dating to March 25th.

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

bulby -

Thanks for the cross references to the narrow gauge discussion board.

Les

trolleyira · **Joined:** Fri Jul 22, 2005 11:22 pm **Posts:** 219

As of this past Saturday, work continues on the #491 but there is much left to do.

Frisco1522 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 14, 2014 5:34 pm

Are they able to handle the 491 on the museum loop? She's pretty big.

Rob Gardner · **Joined:** Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:50 pm **Posts:** 576

Pretty sure they wouldn't put the effort and expense into restoring 491 if she couldn't negotiate most if not all of the loop. Mike Spera's a pretty sharp young gun of steam. This will definitely cause me to schedule another visit to CRRM within the next 1-2 years! Way to go Mike and crew!

This has to be one of the most "under the radar" steam project in a long time. And I think that's the way they want it, too!

Rob Gardner

solar1953 · **Joined:** Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:30 pm **Posts:** 56

With 497 out of action (for the time being), it would be really cool to have another K-37 in operating condition!