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At the same time surveys were made for another branch of the system, one that was to go up the Animas River from Silverton to Mineral Point, 19 miles, and possibly across the divide to Lake City.

Through operation to Ironton began in June 1889. The claim that two daily passenger trains ran there has generally been disbelieved but the following table for 1889, copied from the Official Railway Guide of May 1891, proves the point.

SILVERTON RAILROAD Otto Mears, President S. K. Hooper, General Passenger and Ticket Agent, Denver, Colo. Moses Liverman, General Manager and Ticket Agent, Silverton, Colo. October 23, 1889

Mixed Pass'r Miles Pass'r Mixed

Lv. 7:00 A.M. Lv. 1:10 P.M. .0 Silverton Ar. 11:10 A.M. Ar. 5:20 P.M. 7:34 A.M. 1:44 P.M. 5.0 Burro Bridge 10:36 A.M. 4:46 P.M. 7:49 A.M. 1:59 P.M. 7.5 Chattanooga 10:21 A.M. 4:31 P.M. 8:11 A.M. 2:21 P.M. 12.5 Summit 9:58 A.M. 4:09 P.M. 8:25 A.M. 2:35 P.M. 15.0 Red Mountain 9:50 A.M. 4:00 P.M. 8:26 A.M. 2:36 P.M. 15.5 Vanderbilt 9:44 A.M. 3:54 P.M. 8:27 A.M. 2:37 P.M. 16.0 Yankee Girl 9:43 A.M. 3:53 P.M. 8:45 A.M. 2:55 P.M. 17.0 Paymaster 9:25 A.M. 3:35 P.M. Ar. 9:00 A.M. Ar. 3:10 P.M. 20.0 Ironton Lv. 9:10 A.M. Lv. 3:20 P.M.

Daily except Sunday.

Everything was finished and working properly. Mr. Gibbs must have had the feeling of "well done" and that he deserved a reward. Mrs. Gibbs tells the following story:

"Late in September of 1889, Mr. Gibbs and I were married at Colorado Springs and started for Silverton, going by the way of Montrose and through Ouray where we stayed overnight at the beautiful Beaumont Hotel. The next morning we rode the stage to Ironton and there transferred to the little Silverton Railroad train. As we climbed the grade toward the summit the conductor came through the coach where I was the only passenger and asked me if I were cold. I couldn't deny it so he stopped the train, picked up some wood along the track and built a fire in the little pot-bellied stove.

"In November and December Mr. Gibbs made a preliminary survey from the town of Dallas to Telluride, which was to be the route for the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, and finished the day before Christmas. We stayed overnight in Ouray and left the next morning in a snow-storm. When we reached Ironton my husband heard the line was blocked by snow so he left me with the Strayers while he went on to Silverton.

"He made arrangements for me to meet him in Red Mountain on New Year's day, which I did. Two men besides us were going to Silverton. A shallow trail had been beaten in the deep snow between the rails. The two men held the ends of a ski pole while I hung to the middle of it and we plodded down the track. We came to a sharp hairpin curve and cut it out by sliding downhill from the track above to the one below. A few miles farther on we reached an engine with a snowplow, which was a great relief. When we reached Silverton and got to our room a nice warm dinner was sent up to us by Moses Liverman, superintendent of the S. R.

"A few days latter we left for my husband's old home in Maine. This is what we had planned for our wedding trip but my daughters have always maintained that the others to Silverton by stage and train with all their difficulties were really the wedding journey."

The table below was furnished by Mr. Ridgway. Joker Tunnel did not exist at the time the map was made but was projected or started by 1892. The second column of figures was taken from the 1892 survey of the locating engineer, R. L. Kelly.

Station Mears Timetable of 1889 Actual Mileage, 1892

Silverton 0. 0. Burro Bridge 5. 5. Chattanooga 7.5 7.3 Summit 12.5 10.7 Red Mountain 15. 11.9 Vanderbilt 15.5 12.5 Yankee Girl 16. 12.7 Paymaster 17. 13.7 Corkscrew Gulch 14.1 Joker Tunnel 15. Ironton 20. 16.5 Albany 18.

The exaggerated mileages of the 1889 timetable would have added considerably to the freight charges, in the case of Ironton over 21%. It will be noticed beginning with Red Mountain that each Mears figure is 3 to 3 1/2 miles more than the Kelly figure. Mr. Kelly was one of the ablest engineers of his day and his mileages cannot be questioned.

The table below was copied from an Official Railway Guide of October 1893 but no date is given for the time it was in effect. It is interesting because the mileages are different and because, at the time, only one passenger train was running.

The following quotation is from Mr. Arthur Ridgway:

D. & R. G. track already lay between Ouray and Ridgway and between Silverton and Durango. Mr. Mears, by the end of 1891, had completed the Rio Grande Southern from Ridgway to Durango. Only eight miles from Ironton to Ouray were needed to make a complete 243 mile circle. If only that eight miles could have been constructed! Then a sightseer could have started at Ridgway, taken a side trip to Telluride , proceeded to Durango, to Silverton and back to starting point. He should not have attempted it in the winter or spring because of snow blockades or snowslides but in the summer or fall he could have had the thrill of a lifetime.

He would have looked upon or wended his way among snowcapped peaks, hundreds over 12,000 or 13,000 feet high and some over 14,000 feet, many so sharp as to be termed "needles"; would have crossed several passes, one over 10,000 feet and another over 11,000 feet in altitude; would have gone up one canyon and down another, often beside rushing, tumbling rivers. He would have passed over breathtakingly high bridges, over trestles set against bare cliffs, around U-curves innumerable, over switchbacks, over a turntable, through rock tunnels and even through snow tunnels.

But the thrills and scenery would have been tempered with trouble, that trouble-trouble-boil-and-bubble kind, such as delays because of engines having to blow up, hot boxes, trees across the track, boulders and lots of them on the track, mudslides, washouts, a derailed engine or car or a couple of each and a missing bridge or two.

If his luck were still holding he would have ridden the last lap on the electric railway, down the awesome Red Mountain Creek and Uncompahgre River canyons where sheer rock walls would have risen hundreds of feet above him and dropped hundreds of feet below him and, as he turned a last curve, he would have beheld the never-to-be-forgotten sight of the little town of Ouray, the gem of all mountain towns, nestled in a deep pocket surrounded by towering peaks.

THE SILVERTON RAILROAD COMPANY

Denver, Colorado March 28th, 1892.

Dear Sir:

I beg to hand you herewith a report from the auditor of the earnings of the Silverton Railroad for the years 1889, 1890 and 1891, showing also the mileage and bonded debt.

I may add for your information that this road is built through the famous Red Mountain district of the San Juan Country, in which are located the well-known Yankee Girl and Guston mines, besides many other producing properties.

This is the only road that can be built through this district because of lack of room. The mines mentioned are large producers, and there are many more which are being developed rapidly. This is one of the best known mining districts in Colorado. From Ironton to the town of Ouray, which is reached by another branch of the Denver & Rio Grande, the distance is seven miles over very precipitous country.

The reason the road has not been extended to Ouray is because of the excessive cost, but capitalists are now engaged in making estimates and plans for an electric road to cover this distance to follow the line of the Mears toll road as indicated on the map. A line of this kind can be built to operate much more cheaply than a railway line, and we have good reason to expect that this gap may be so filled during this year. At the present time stages make daily trips each way over the toll road, and the trip from Silverton to Ouray is a favorite one with the tourists on account of the beauty and grandeur of the scenery on the toll road.

There is every reason to expect that the earnings for the year 1892 will increase in the same proportion as in the past, and will continue for a great many years. The Silverton Railroad is also authorized to build up the Animas River. We would like very much this year to extend the road in that direction some 12 or 15 miles in order to reach a very rich and valuable mining district. There are a great many very extensive mines of low grade material lying between Silverton and the summit of the range towards the northeast, and our object in offering to you the bonds of the present line of the railroad is to obtain funds to extend the line up the Animas River.

We can offer you at the present time 0,000 out of a total of 5,000. These bonds are issued in denominations of ,000 each. The interest is payable semi-annually on the first of April and the first of October at the rate of six per cent per annum in U. S. gold coin.

Yours very truly, John L. McNeil, Treasurer.

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. INSTITUTED 1852.

TRANSACTIONS. NOTE.--This Society is not responsible, as a body, for the facts and opinions advanced in any of its publications.

THE TURN-TABLE ON THE MAIN TRACK OF THE SILVERTON RAILROAD IN COLORADO.

WITH DISCUSSION.

The Silverton Railroad is a short line but 17.5 miles long, and has the reputation of being the steepest , the crookedest and the best paying road in Colorado; and is owned by one man, Otto Mears. It also has a turn-table on its main track, and it is the purpose of this paper to describe it and explain why it was so placed.

This table is the source of a great deal of comment from tourists, of whom there are many during the summer months, as it is on the line known as the "circle," so extensively advertised by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.

The road is used both for a freight and passenger road, and as before mentioned, is the best paying road in Colorado, two engines being kept busy hauling ore to Silverton from the Red Mountain district.

The object of writing this paper was to describe what the author thinks is quite a novelty, being the only turn-table that he has ever heard of which is used upon a switchback in this manner, and where the grades are adjusted as they are to let the train run by gravity on the table from both ways.

DISCUSSION.

J. Foster Cromwell, M. Am. Soc. C. E.--It occurs to me that the use of this turn-table being simply to turn the engine during transit, while the train waits, and, moreover, as the service is a special one on a spur line, it would have been better to obtain an engine capable of running in either direction and not requiring to be turned, rather than resort to a turn-table in the main track which contains an element of danger as well as of delay to the traffic. The device, however, is an ingenious one to meet the peculiar conditions of line; and if experience with it proves satisfactory, there are other problems on a larger scale relating to change of direction in mountain location that it may help to solve.

C. W. Gibbs, M. Am. Soc. C. E.--If a special engine had been procured, as Mr. Crowell suggests, it would have been at an extra expense, owing to the limited number wanted; and even with a special design, it might have been difficult for any engine to have backed its load over so steep a grade and such sharp curves without more danger than was suggested there might be at the turn-table. The delay to traffic amounts to nothing, for there are no competing lines, nor do I expect there ever will be. The turn-table has now been in actual operation every day since June, 1889, and no accident has ever occurred.

AUDITOR'S STATEMENT EARNINGS AND EXPENSES, SILVERTON RAILROAD YEARS 1889, 1890 AND 1891

Gross earnings from Frt. Psngr. Exp. Etc. $ 80,881.66 Operating and all other expenses 34,285.04 46,596.62 Interest on first mortgage bonds 1 year 25,500.00 21,096.62

Gross earnings from Frt. Psngr. Exp. Etc. 5,673.39 Operating and all other expenses 51,127.22 54,546.17 Interest on first mortgage bonds 1 year 25,500.00 29,046.17

Gross earnings from Frt. Psngr. Exp. Etc. 1,611.38 Operating and all other expenses 57,548.37 64,063.01 Interest on first mortgage bonds 1 year 25,500.00 38,563.01

Length of line 17 miles Length of side tracks 8 miles 25 miles Floating debt Nil Bonded debt 5,000.00

Alex Anderson, Auditor

At the time the foregoing statement was made, the Company owned the following equipment:

In addition to the above, the company now owns 50 freight cars, which it has since purchased, and it also has a floating debt of ,502.76.

Alex Anderson, Auditor

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