Another piece of Colorado NG History lost :-(

S

sawyer811

MKT Forever and always
The wildfires in Colorado have claimed yet another victim; this time, though, (and, in all honesty, thankfully) that victim was not a human being, but wooden D&RGW 26' "long" caboose 0584, coupled behind K-37 class Mikado No. 499 at the rim of the Royal Gorge. The news story at the top of this page tells the sad truth: http://www.drgw.net/

I want to point out that, like the author of the news article, I'm in no way attempting to diminish the human toll, the loss of life and property, by elevating a caboose above a person. Yes, it hits home for me, because Colorado is and always will be a sort of second home, the place to which my heart belongs, and her narrow gauge railroads will always be a favorite of mine, but frankly, I'd rather every wooden freight car left from the narrow gauge burn than one person lose their life.
 
It seems that it so rarely rains in these States, that when the grass is short in the spring, a massive "controlled burn" program should be used ... If it's going to burn eventually, may as well "control burn" the areas to prevent wildfires.
 
A sad story and pictures indeed. We are having a problem with fires near where Im at but nothing on this scale. My thoughts go out to the families of the deceased as well.
 
Problem is if you look at a political map you will see that most if not all of the western state affected by these fires are very conservative don't tax me for anything states. It takes a lot of money and resources to do prescribed burns and fuel control. Most of these people don't see the point until it's to late. There are programs out there for fuels control.
 
The downside to prescribed burns is that they can get out of control very quickly. Then you go from a small fire to prevent a big one to a big one that you caused.
 
This is very sad news indeed.

The west overall has been dry, and dangerously so for about a decade. Even though the region got some good rains and snow this past winter and spring, the ground was so dry that the water never soaked in so the dryness remains.

John
 
I was shocked when I saw the Colorado wildfires. I live in an area of England where heathland fires are very common and large but not on this scale. We use a method called damping down, so when it gets hot (it's regularly hitting 25 degrees celsius where I am at the mo) we spray the heather with water. We also sometimes use control burning as well. I am so sorry for what had happened in Colorado, words just dont do it justice.
 
nicky9499 said:
I assume the K37 was not in steam at that time? Otherwise the most logical action would then be to just move the train. Pity, that caboose was a real beaut.
Click to expand...
She's been stuffed and mounted there since the late 1990's (this used to be where K-36 No. 486 was on display, but 486 was traded for the Durango & Silverton's K-37 No 499 so 486 could be returned to steam). so yes, she couldn't move, even if she wanted too, and it's not like there's any track for her to escape on/over anyway.


BTW, Uracco, we do that same kind of Damping down where I live, as well as controlled burns, but like others have said, with the western states being so dry, it's almost not worth it to do controlled burning. It's far too easy for a burn to get away from you; in fact that happened near where one of my relatives lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The D&S and the Cumbres and Toltec are probably both pulling water cars behind their steam engines about now, rigged to spray out water on both sides of the tracks in case cinders or sparks from the locos set the grass alight. Heck, the Parks service may have banned the D&SNGRR from running steam at all...they've done that before.
 
I have seen the photograph, and from what I can tell 499 doesn't seem to have been damaged too much, rather surprisingly. (But the photo was more centered on the caboose remains, so it was a little hard to tell. But, from what I could see, it didn't even appear that the paint had been seriously damaged)
 
Only reported damage to the locomotive was the paint (from the heat) and the doghouse on the tender burned off
 
that, then, is a good thing; if you're to look at the pictures taken in the aftermath of the Durango Roundhouse fire, you'd realize just HOW much worse the damage could have been to 499.
 
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