A Golden Opportunity

 While in the Denver area, we had the opportunity to visit the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden.  In passenger service they were going to be running the Rio Grande 491, one of the well-known outside frame 2-8-0's (K-37), and I wanted to see it in steam.

We've been here before, but that was many years ago, so let's take another look.  The museum has a large and varied collection of both standard and narrow gauge equipment, so I'll just include a few items of interest.  (I could always post more on demand!)  Almost everything is stored outside on display, and most of it is maintained in good cosmetic condition.  There is a brick roundhouse with a dual-gauge turntable and five stalls, but no other storage barns.  Several of the storage tracks are disconnected from the rest of the layout.

The museum is surrounded by residential areas, so there's really no place to expand.  That leads to some imaginative uses for the existing property.

Among other things, they have a collection of historic equipment from the Pike's Peak cog railway.  The mechanical motions on this steam locomotive must have been fascinating to watch.

Because the entire line is on a grade, the boiler was set at an angle.  And there were no couplers, just a roller pressing against the buffer on the passenger car:

These were replaced by more modern equipment:

The turntable:

The back of the roundhouse:

There are several displays inside the station building, including a large model railroad in the basement, but attendance was limited due to pandemic restrictions, so I didn't wait in line to see it.  But here's a CTC panel:

And some interesting scratch-built models:

This is for Buzz: a narrow-gauge four-wheeled velocipede.

The operating track is a narrow-gauge circle about 1/2 mile in circumference.  The passenger rides consist of three trips around the circle.  During revenue operation, the active track is blocked and roped off so visitors cannot cross, and the storage yards outside the circle are not accessible.  They had a good number of volunteers on duty to make sure no one crossed the line.

  And here comes the train:

You would have to be going faster to take the diverging route....

But active steam is always great to see in action.

Finally, a close-up of the action on an outside-frame locomotive:

Well, that was certainly interesting.  CRRM has an excellent and wide-ranging collection that displays all types of Colorado railroading.  But for me, there's no place like home.