Historic railroad exhibit needs maintenance

Daily Press Writer

MONTROSE — A deteriorating railroad exhibit needs attention after more than 30 years of display on a trestle above Cimarron Creek.   

“There are certain elements of the train that are in pretty poor condition,” National Park Service archaeologist Forest Frost said. “Overall I wouldn’t call it poor condition, but it’s definitely not good either.”

The Cimarron Canyon Rail Exhibit’s locomotive and caboose have been on lease to the park service from the city of Montrose since 1973.

Located near Morrow Point Dam, the display was cloaked for winter within the past couple weeks.

In tourist season it is frequented railroad aficionados, Frost said.

“I had someone in Australia write that they saw that display, really enjoyed it,” he said. “It’s a pretty unique resource and it’s known to certain people nationwide.”

He said the train is unique in that it’s displayed on a trestle where it would have run historically. The Denver and Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad passed through the location on its way from Gunnison into Montrose before the 1950s.

After Locomotive No. 278 was retired it was displayed on North Townsend Avenue in roughly the mid-50s. The caboose joined it after it was purchased by a local garden club and deeded to the city. Montrose leased the railroad equipment to the park service because of problems with vandalism.

Now the park service is working with the Bureau of Land Management through an interagency agreement to have the exhibit put on the National Register of Historic Places. Frost said this will help bring in finances necessary for improving the display. He said his department would also like to work with the city to obtain state finances.

In 2005 the exhibit was announced a $48,000 allotment secured by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park to help with planning for the restoration and future protection. Frost said about $290,000 is needed to stabilize and repair the rotten elements.

Representatives of the park service presented the project’s status to Montrose City Council at a Nov. 1 work session. Resident Bob Schaeffer later approached the podium to express his desire that action be taken soon. Schaeffer brought the exhibit’s deterioration to the council’s attention in 2003.

“It’ no longer practical to maintain it on the bridge” he said in a phone interview Friday. “It’s got to be put some place that we can be sure that it can be maintained.”

“You can’t expect that stuff to exist very long without maintenance.”

He said the more accessible Ridgway Railroad Museum could be a suitable alternative, as in such a location it would receive more exposure to visitors and less to weathering.

“That isn’t necessarily the only way it could go,” Schaeffer said. “The city could display it in the city limits in some manner.”

But the council has expressed sentiment toward keeping the exhibit were it is. Councilor Ed Ulibarri said the city leased it to the park service — for 99 years — because of lack of finances for maintenance.

“It kind of looks like that’s where it belongs because that’s where it came out of the canyon to come into Montrose,” Ulibarri said.

Before improvements can begin, the train must be removed from its trestle.

Frost said this will require building a structure to pull the train off. This could be erected in the spring with the cars removed between late spring and early summer.

Montrose Parks Planner Dennis Erickson has taken action to bring attention to the exhibit and help find financing for improvements. He went to Denver in March to speak on behalf of the exhibit for its inclusion in President Bush’s $3 billion National Park Centennial Initiative.  

Erickson said once the funding is there, the exhibit will have a visitor center and a preservation studio where it can be improved and displayed to the public through the winter.

“I want to work with the park service to keep a part of (local) heritage,” he said. “That’s what helped build Montrose many years ago.”

The locomotive was built in Philadelphia in 1882. It was used on the D&RG’s main line on the Crested Butte Branch and on the Gunnison railyards for more than 70 years, according to the park service Web site at www.nps.gov.

Contact Robert Allen via e-mail at roberta@montrosepress.com