Join us as we ride behind the Ghost Town and Calico Railroad # 41 before her triumphant return to Knott's Berry Farm as she takes a final ride on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. This is an expansion of our video "Rio Grande Southern 41 Leaves Durango For The Final Time" ( • Rio Grande Southern 41... ) where we'll only be spending our time in the cab with Chris and Scott, two of the roundhouse foremen who rebuilt Rio Grande Southern in a frame off restoration in this locomotive's most extensive overhaul in over a century. Join us as we ride from Hermosa Colorado at the base of the grueling two-and-a-half percent grade through Pinkerton Hot Springs and around Shalona Lake to the old stagecoach stop at Rockwood.
We're in a C-19 Consolidation, which is MUCH smaller than what we're used to seeing here on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge... But What is this locomotive? Is this the 42 that's in the Roundhouse Museum? No! But, the tender has the same logo... Wait, a C-19? That's the same class as what Hyce runs at the Colorado Railroad Museum... But curses, No, it's not his 346, and it not his 20, though the logo again is of the long gone Rio Grande Southern that ran from Durango to Telluride and on to Ridgeway and Ouray (some flatlanders just can't handle US Highway 550 and the Million Dollar Highway... all scared cause there's a 400-foot drop and no guard rail).
Nope, this is the long ago left for California # 41 from the Rio Grande Southern, and has just finished up her rebuild. After years of going and making right turn after right turn at Knott's Berry Farm where it's been on the Ghost Town and Calico Railroad since the 1950's we watch as it goes for A LEFT TURN! After a complete frame-off rebuild by the Durango Shop forces in the roundhouse, the 41 left on the 18th of November for a trip to Rockwood and back. By the time you’re reading this, the venerable consolidation will be heading west to cross the trestle of Ghost Rider, under the shadows of Silver Bullet, the ghost of Montezooma's Revenge, and salute at Camp Snoopy… all to get some of Mrs Knott’s Fried Chicken and boysenberry pie.
So let’s make that left turn and look for that Distant Signal, oh wait, we’re not delay in block even though we’re out of Yard Limit as we follow this coasterfan adjunct locomotive.