7:30 A. M. 0 Lv. Silverton Ar. 11:50 A. M.
8:00 6 Burro Bridge 11:40
8:10 9 Chattanooga 11:30
8:30 13 Summit 11:10
8:40 14 Red Mountain 10:50
15 Vanderbilt
8:55 15 Yankee Girl 10:45
16 Paymaster coal track
9:10 17 Corkscrew Gulch 10:25
18 Paymaster ore track
9:20 A. M. 20 Ar. Ironton Lv. 10:00
All carrier lines issued paper passes but Mears wanted to do something
special for _his_ railroad. Outside of the paper ones his passes fell
into four categories—buckskin, plate, medallion and filigree. The first
three were for the Silverton Railroad alone while the fourth, though
made especially for the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, was usable on the
S. R.
There were two designs of the silver plate pass. It is supposed that the
first die broke and a substitute had to be made. The medallion passes,
ordinarily silver, have the date 1890, the number and the name of the
recipient on the back. Two extra-special ones have come to light. Each
is made of two _gold_ medallions set back to back and hinged to form a
locket and each has a little diamond in the face. An odd silver pass, a
spoon with a plate pass hanging from underneath, has been discovered.
The filigrees, silver and gold, have been extensively treated in the
book, _Rio Grande Southern Story_.
According to an item in a Rico _Sun_ of November 28, 1891, copied from a
Denver _Sun_, a company called “Ouray and Ironton Electric Railway,
Light and Power,” consisting of Mears, Walsen, Charles Munn, James H.
Cassanova and William H. Wallace, with capital of $800,000, filed
articles of incorporation with the Secretary of State on November 20.
Its purpose was to build a cog road from Ouray to Ironton, with a branch
up Poughkeepsie Gulch (Uncompahgre River) to the head of Cement Creek.
The following quotation is from Mr. Arthur Ridgway:
“The assumption that Mr. Mears contemplated extending the S. R. from
Ironton to Ouray is correct but he was deterred because of its being so
formidable an undertaking. He may have considered Albany as the possible
point for the origin of the extension at first but later Ironton proved
the more feasible. Anyway, he had a preliminary location for an
_electric_ railway, Ouray to Ironton, made in 1892 by the then noted
locating engineer, R. L. Kelly. No doubt the impracticability if not the
utter impossibility, of operating steam locomotives over the heavy
grades and severe curvature known to be necessary dissuaded him from the
purpose until the recognized practicability of electric railway
operation became apparent in 1892. Whatever the delay (a long one for
Mr. Mears) it was not until 1892 that a survey was made and even then,
as stated before, for electric operation. The map I have of the
completed location shows a line starting from a connection with the
Denver & Rio Grande at the Ouray depot, eight miles in length, to a
connection near the Ironton depot, incorporating 7% maximum gradients
and 35° maximum rate of curvature. With even these severe physical
characteristics considerable tunnelling was necessary. I do not have the
estimated cost of the project but it must have been staggering. It is
small wonder that with the difficulty of financing so costly a scheme
and the great financial panic a year later in 1893, together with the
contemporary decadence of silver mining, the project was permanently
shelved by even the visionary Mr. Mears.”
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 (14.6 miles),
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.