Colorado Midland Railway Engineering Report

[wm3798]

They need wagons to bring the ore to the railhead, don't they?  And what about Miss Kitty and Marshall Dillon?  How will they get to their appointments at Doc Holliday's?

Lee

[Dave V]

The Heljan trestle kit arrived today...  Boy will that thing set the mood.  Case in point:

This is the Hagerman Trestle on the original Hagerman Pass High Line. 





At over a thousand feet long...on a curve...with a ruling grade of 4%...it sat on the eastern approach to the Hagerman Pass tunnel at over 11,000 feet above mean sea level.  The tunnel was another 500' higher, piercing the Continental Divide at the rooftop of North America, above the trees and above 40% of the Earth's atmosphere (by mass).

If anyone cares to call me out on the spaghetti bowl trackage on my little layout plan, I will refer them to this...   



The big trestle is on the left, and Hagerman Pass Tunnel is at the upper left.  This is painted directly from a William H Jackson photograph that appears in my book.

Hagerman was plagued by snow ten months of the year, in spite of snow sheds and a pair of rotary plows.  In fact, the Great Snow Blockade of 1899 shut the railroad down for four months.  The railroad eventually contracted a lower tunnel (starting at the town of Busk seen at bottom center) to Ivanhoe on the other side...just shy of two miles west.  The Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel cost millions of dollars and many lives, but saved the railroad.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Unreal.

Have you seen the MRP yet?

[Chris333]

You need some snow sheds.

[Dave V]

Unreal.

Have you seen the MRP yet?

Negative.  Heading to Caboose this weekend.

You need some snow sheds.

Agreed.  Maybe I'll stick one on the end of a tunnel.  Bother Hagerman and the Busk-Ivanhoe had sheds on either end.  The other tunnels on Ute Pass and along the Arkansas River did not.

[Dave V]

I actually think this is a very well engineered kit considering what it is...an easy-to-build plastic kit for a very complicated wooden structure.  The more I look at it the more I really want to built it to its maximum size and height.  Note that it comes with a curved deck option.  Bingo!

In the meantime, I'm feeling some period inspiration...

[OldEastRR]

Love all these reports coming in on various layouts....but what happened to Chris333's Erie?

[Dave V]

One thing that really attracts me to the Midland (and Colorado railroads in general) is that it was built in an era when American men thought nothing was impossible given enough hard work and determination.  They believed that science, engineering, and technology would bring us a better tomorrow.  They believed in the future, and they determined to make that future happen.

If you ever find yourself driving west on US24 out of Colorado Springs, through Manitou Springs and Ute Pass, you'll see much of the mountain has been removed to make room for the highway.  Yet up on your left is a series of fills, cuts, and tunnels clinging to a sheer rock wall.  This was the Midland, built when there was no highway here and absolutely no clear path through Ute Pass.

Think of the 'nards on such men as those who pointed toward the literal wall of 10,000'-14,000' mountains to the west of Colorado Springs and said "We're gonna build a railroad there...and we're gonna do it in standard gauge no less."

[Philip H]

Point very well made - though they would (from a biological perspective) have had serious NADS not NARDS . . . .

[Dave V]

Point very well made - though they would (from a biological perspective) have had serious NADS not NARDS . . . .

Nard is a variation on 'nad.

[Dave V]

I picked up the MRP2015 at Caboose Hobbies (where I met up with Eric220).  What floored me about Andrew Dodge's layout is not the exquisite detail but the fact that it represents roughly one year of work.  He's retired, but still...  Kick me in the butt.

Finally scored the code 55 bridge track I need plus some stone abutments for the big steel bridge.  Also some proper MTL arch bar trucks with short-shank couplers.

[eric220]

Good to see you today!



PS, @wm3798 check out the color of that sky!

[wm3798]

We can't see the sky on the East Coast.  Some sort of moratorium or something...

Lee

[Scottl]

Photoshopped 

[eric220]

Photoshopped 

Nah. Just Colorado.