Though there seems to have been no scheduled service in 1923, at least the track was still lying and trains must have been run as needed. This period, it should be remembered, was one of hard times following World War I.
| SILVERTON NORTHERN | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Official Roster, 1923 | ||||
| 0. | Silverton | 9,300 | ||
| 1. | Power | |||
| 2. | Waldheim | |||
| 3. | Robin | |||
| 3.2 | Collins | |||
| 4.7 | Howardsville | |||
| 0. | Howardsville | |||
| 1.1 | Old Hundred | |||
| 1.3 | Green Mountain | |||
| 6.2 | Hamlet | |||
| 7.4 | Minnie Gulch | |||
| 8.5 | Eureka | 10,000 | ||
| Astor | ||||
| Lion Tunnel | ||||
| 12.5 | Animas Forks | 11,200 | ||
The branch to Green Mountain operated only a short time because the mines up that way turned out to be poor producers. The part from Eureka to Animas Forks is claimed never to have paid expenses and soon quit regular operation though occasional trains ran up there until sometime in the twenties. Mears offered the right-of-way to the county if it would take up the track, which it did, and Mr. Meyer hauled the junk down in 1936.[4] Like the S. R., it was a road to begin with and ended up by being one again.
The section from Silverton to Eureka revived and lasted the longest of any of the three little railroads. Ore was shipped over it from the Sunnyside mine and mill until 1939 when the mine closed down because of a miner’s strike.
In the summer of 1942 the property was advertised for sale for $17,000 in delinquent taxes. Mrs. Cora Pitcher, Mears’s daughter, sold it to the Dullen Steel Products Company and paid the taxes. This company shipped the shop equipment, rails and rolling stock out in October.
The United States had, after it became involved in war with Japan, established military bases in Alaska. The railroad there, the White Pass and Yukon, needed more motive power and the government requisitioned the three locomotives, the 3, 4, and 34. There, so R. E. Cooper states, they were re-numbered to 22, 23 and 24, respectively. In 1947 word was received from the War Surplus Board and the W. P. & Y. Ry. that twelve engines—7 D. & R. G., 2 C. & S. and 3 S. N.—had been received by the Alaska Railroad but when Diesel power was obtained there, all except No. 34 (24) were returned to Seattle to M. Block & Co., a junking outfit. The last known of the 34, it was sitting in the railroad yards at Skagway, Alaska, in a state of dismantlement.
In 55 years, 1887 to 1942, the three little Silverton railroads started, prospered, declined and perished and nothing, unless one considers still discernible roadbeds and rotting ties, remains to attest their existence. No equipment except one coach, which is scarcely recognizable as such, has survived. A few little relics such as small amounts of paper material, a goodly number of pictures and S. R. buckskin, silver and gold passes have survived and they are scattered from one end of the United States to the other. Pathetic mementos they are, for agents that played such a large part in the life and prosperity of their community.
THE FOLLOWING PAGES....
Views and Documents of Narrow Gauge Railroading in the San Juan Mountains.
PLATE XXI.
TRANS.AM.SOC.CIV.ENGRS.
VOL. XXIII. No. 450
GIBBS ON
SILVERTON RAILROAD.
Silverton
RAILROAD
1888