The Bomb-Proof Streetcar

A long-time IRM member and old friend of mine, Wally Weart, recently invited me out to Cheyenne, Wyoming to examine the only existing narrow-gauge interurban car from the Denver and Intermountain.  He had saved the car from being scrapped, and helped persuade the City of Arvada (a suburb of Denver) to purchase it.  The body has been sent to the Cheyenne area to be restored by Mike Pannell, a noted car restoration worker in the area.  First, let's see his unique work facility.

Mike has acquired an Atlas ICBM missile silo out in the desert in the Cheyenne area.  The silo was built about 1960 and decommissioned in 1965.  The Atlas was in service for only a few years, being replaced by the Titan missile, which was based in underground bunkers.

Here's a better view of the silo.  The roof would be blasted open if the missile were to be fired, supported on these steel frames.  But essentially we have here a concrete warehouse, which provides a secure home for several railroad carbodies.  Now if only we could build carbarns like this:

And this is the D&IM .04.  It was built in 1911 as a standard-gauge car, #11, and later converted to narrow gauge.  The D&IM for some reason gave its narrow-gauge equipment decimal numbers, so this car became .04, one of its many unique features.

Because there are no narrow-gauge trucks available, among other reasons, the city plans to restore the car as purely a static artifact, and it will be displayed inside and protected from the weather.

Near the end of its career, the railroad rebuilt it with this unusual two-window end at the front, and this is the configuration to which it will be restored.

Mike has been rebuilding the roof and many other parts of the structure, and there's a lot of new wood.

Fortunately, they were able to acquire a complete set of seats from another car in this series.  This would be nearly impossible to reproduce:

There were plans to put the body on a pair of old Burlington waycar trucks, but they have instead decided to fabricate a pair of narrow-gauge trucks that look correct, although perhaps not operational.

This is the rear end, with its original three-window design:

And here's a group photo: (L to R) myself, Wally Weart, Pete West (a member of the Rocky club), Kim Grant (from the City of Arvada), and Mike Pannell.  A good time was had by all.

Mike has several other projects in progress.  I took pictures of a few of them, but I won't try to describe them all.

This is certainly an interesting restoration project, and I hope to keep in touch until it's finished.