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The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad is going the way of the Colorado & Southern, the Colorado Midland, the Denver & Salt Lake, the Denver, Laramie & Northwestern, etc. It will someday exist only on model-train layouts and in the arcane histories written by and for railroad buffs.
Except for the tourist lines, only one railroad remains with local geography in its name -- the obscure Colorado & Wyoming. The C&W is a subsidiary of CF&I; it once hauled coal near Trinidad and iron ore near Guernsey, Wyo. I don't know how active it is these days, but the last time I was in Pueblo, I did see a C&W locomotive idling in the CF&I yards.
Each day henceforth, a yellow and black Rio Grande locomotive will emerge from the Burnham shops as a red, gray and white Southern Pacific locomotive. The same will happen to other rolling stock, and the D&RGW will be no more.
Some Salidans will take a certain pleasure in this. Salida was established in 1880 as a division point for the Rio Grande, and for 75 years, it was a railroad town with shops, two roundhouses, a hospital and like facilities.
In 1955, the Rio Grande closed almost everything hereabouts; employment dropped from 500 to about 50. Community leaders protested that the railroad might owe something to the community it had created.
Local legend has it that the Rio Grande hierarchy replied that grass could grow in the streets of Salida for all they cared. Those locals who recall that fight must feel pleased that the town has now outlived the railroad.
But it's sad to see the Rio Grande, Colorado's own
railroad, merged into the Southern Pacific -- known as
the Octopus
about a century ago for its corrupt
domination of California's economy and politics.
Gen. William Jackson Palmer established the Rio Grande in 1870 as a narrow-gauge line; one reason for narrow gauge was to keep his railroad independent. Even so, it soon fell into the hands of robber-baron Jay Gould, whose son George nearly bankrupted the Rio Grande by draining the company to finance construction of the Western Pacific.
Meanwhile David Moffat pushed straight west from Denver with his own line; construction was almost blocked at Gore Canyon by lawyers in the employ of Edward H. Harriman. He owned the Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific, and he took a dim view of potential competition.
Harriman lost that battle -- the Rio Grande gained both independence and the Moffat Tunnel shortly after World War II -- but in the long run, his side won. The once-independent Rio Grande will vanish like the caboose and the steam locomotive. There was a sense of continuity and of place when you saw Rio Grande locomotives crawling toward the top of Tennessee or Veta pass with a long freight; the spectacle won't be the same when it's a Southern Pacific train. Colorado will be less distinctive and more like every other place.
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