The Blackhawk and Central City Blog

June 16

Spiking Upper Blackhawk is finished and I've started putting in switches and wiring track.

My trip for my grandparent's 70th wedding anniversary turned into a research trip. I inherited a copy of the 1972 Colorado rail annual which covered the Colorado Central building up the Clear Creek and I found a bunch more information:

  1. I now have photos of the original 0-4-0 engines (which I did not previously have)
  2. The Blackhawk passenger station of photographic history is not the original station - the original station was an abandoned mill about 1/4 of a mill south that the Colorado Central cut arches into the sides of and turned into an indoor station. Now I just have to figure out where to fit that into Lower Blackhawk.
  3. Further, it turns out that my modifying flat cars for rolling stock was prototypical. The initial 14 cars the CC used were modified flat cars (they turned into 6 house cars, a baggage car, and 2 coal cars) so I almost have the mix the same. I have to claim serendipity on that one...
  4. Lastly, the railroad was constantly complaining to the UP that they needed more rolling stock. So, I'm now planning on changing my freight agent job to be far more important - he/she will be responsible for figuring out how to meet the incoming freight requests (because there will be more than the available stock can handle).

Finally, I got around to finishing the tail trestle for Central City - I'm going to take it up to the regional and see how it does (I went a little overboard on the details).

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