Showing posts with label DRGW 491. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DRGW 491. Show all posts

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Rio Grande 491 Struts Her Stuff Around Her New Home

A little bird (not Twitter) whispered in my ear that the restoration of 491 by the Colorado Railroad Museum has got someone's attention down in Durango. Could be that the museum will be doing some work on another K-37 Mikado very, very soon.

I hope so. I hope they run her as well as her sister, too. What day is today? Thursday. Would you believe that contributing photographer found her pulling a load of passengers in a gondola? To my delight and our mutual pleasure, it was too good for John to pass up!



All three photos: John Hill
Get on down there this weekend for Father's Day. Tell them it would make you happy to see your kids in the caboose! Well, it would. Wouldn't it?⚒

Monday, September 22, 2014

Narrow Gauge Rio Grande Mikado 491 Sees Blue Skies After A Pivotal Year

Rio Grande 491 rides the turntable Friday afternoon under a beautiful blue sky. With restoration still to be done, she nonetheless looks like she's ready for work. Heading for the Monarch branch, perhaps?
Photo: John Hill, contributing photographer for Colorado Railroads
Rio Grande narrow gauge steam locomotive 491, Colorado's most recently restored steamer is part of the vaunted K-37 class. They were perhaps the largest, heaviest, strongest class of narrow gauge Mikados ever to work a narrow gauge railroad, with the possible exception of a couple of articulateds on the Uintah.

Starting life in 1902 as a Baldwin-built standard gauge locomotive for the Rio Grande numbered 1026, she was converted along with 5 other classmates to 3-foot narrow gauge in 1928. Additionally, Burnham shop machinists took her from a 2-8-0 wheel arrangement (Consolidation) to a 2-8-2 wheel arrangement, known as Mikado. The innovators in Denver's Burnham shops had no way of knowing that their work would long outlast the thundering, Big Boy-like articulated engines of the 2-8-8-2 L-131 class that saw work in the very same shops!

Yet, some parts of 491 make her twice as unique an engine. Colorado Railroad Museum intern Benjamin Fearn explains in the museum's Iron Horse News, the firebox of 491 has thermic siphons installed inside. Such devices worked to take more of the energy from the combustion in the fire and pass it into the water of the boiler. As it does, convection draws more water into the siphon to pick up more energy. Conservation and efficiency were useful concepts at Burnham, just like most steam shops of their day.

So, if everything goes right, 491 could be 13 years away--as a narrow gauge engine--in what could be a career not measured in years, but in centuries. As my favorite engine at the museum, I can't wait to see the completed work!

The story of the restoration of 491 is available in the Iron Horse News and in the museum's Roundhouse News blog.◊

Special thanks to John Hill for the timely photograph!

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Rio Grande 491 Operational! Celebrates with Tour of the Museum Loop

Ahem. After a few friends have poked me in the ribs, asking if I indeed knew this was happening at the Colorado Railroad Museum (I did, but family matters kept me away). I'm a little too excited, but I will keep my detached decorum. I will not geek out over a certain bit of news that just begs to be shouted from the summit of Mt. Elbert.

Instead... I will let the video speak for itself.



Just listen to that whistle halfway through. Oh, baby!◊

D&RGW 491 at No Agua tank on the museum grounds this summer
Photo: Colorado Railroad Museum