Its strange how one gets drawn into some projects by accident . I was working on an Australian project, but had no available buildings ...which was a problem, then Pitkin tempted me with a DEM of the Denver South Park and pacific alpine tunnel route , which really interested me more then the oz route. Once I started work on Alpine tunnel , I extended it, then I extended it again and I found myself working on the construction of Buena Vista Colorado, where , in the 1890s, the D&RGW, the DSP&P and the Colorado Midland all touched base.
i didn't intend to create the Colorado midland, as I already had more then enough work to do with the DSP&P route, but it looked a very interesting line, the only standard gauge route to cross the rockies in that part of the state of Colorado , an assortment of loops and tunnels at Hagermann Pass and an ignominious end where it went bankrupt, partly due to the federal governments mistreatment and fickleness regarding war traffic. I bought some books about the line and the next thing I found was I was extending both it and the DSP&P up Trout Creek Pass to where they crossed over each other at Bath ( or hilltop as it was also known ) .
The biggest problem facing any construction of this route is there is hardly any rolling stock. There are a few box cars , gondolas and reefers, but no way cars or coaches and only an 0-6-0 which was used to construction purposes, The railroad had a fleet of MOstly 18/80/90s 4-6-0s and consolidations, but there aren't really any engines on the DLS that would fit the bill to be reskinned.
There were also no buildings at all, so I had to resort to reskinning a number of Ben Dorsey's buildings that are close to the originals, this mainly involved color changes to dark brown for trackside buildings and Santa Fe cream and green for stations, not all buildings were in any particular color , the line was often short of funds and they often resorted to painting buildings with whatever was available locally .
The line begins at the helper station of Wild Horse about a mile from Buena vista and another mile or so away from the four short CM tunnels that are quite well known and still intact,being known as the Midland Tunnels, having a country road still in use so one can travel through them .
Wild Horse, Trainboi's CM 0-6-0 and Ben Neal's Baldwin 2-8-0h standing in for a CM Baldwin, the model is a few years too modern to be an appropriate stand in .
i didn't intend to create the Colorado midland, as I already had more then enough work to do with the DSP&P route, but it looked a very interesting line, the only standard gauge route to cross the rockies in that part of the state of Colorado , an assortment of loops and tunnels at Hagermann Pass and an ignominious end where it went bankrupt, partly due to the federal governments mistreatment and fickleness regarding war traffic. I bought some books about the line and the next thing I found was I was extending both it and the DSP&P up Trout Creek Pass to where they crossed over each other at Bath ( or hilltop as it was also known ) .
The biggest problem facing any construction of this route is there is hardly any rolling stock. There are a few box cars , gondolas and reefers, but no way cars or coaches and only an 0-6-0 which was used to construction purposes, The railroad had a fleet of MOstly 18/80/90s 4-6-0s and consolidations, but there aren't really any engines on the DLS that would fit the bill to be reskinned.
There were also no buildings at all, so I had to resort to reskinning a number of Ben Dorsey's buildings that are close to the originals, this mainly involved color changes to dark brown for trackside buildings and Santa Fe cream and green for stations, not all buildings were in any particular color , the line was often short of funds and they often resorted to painting buildings with whatever was available locally .
The line begins at the helper station of Wild Horse about a mile from Buena vista and another mile or so away from the four short CM tunnels that are quite well known and still intact,being known as the Midland Tunnels, having a country road still in use so one can travel through them .
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