Elvas Tower: D&RGW K-36 Locomotives 484, 487, and, 489 - Elvas Tower

484, 487 and 489 were three of 10 2-8-2 K-36 Class Mikado type locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1925. These K-36s were the last new narrow gauge motive power ordered by the D&RDW Railroad. Although the K-37 class locomotives are thought of by some to be newer, they were actually rebuilt from older 1903 vintage standard gauge 2-8-0 locomotives.

Nine of the ten K-36 locomotives still exist and all are operational except for 483, which is in dead storage on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway (C&T). The only K-36 no longer in existence is 485, which rolled into a turntable pit at Salida, and was scrapped shortly afterwards. 483, 484,487,488, and 489 are on the C&T; and 480,481,482, and 486 are on the Durango & Silverton NG Railroad.

This model was built from plans by Robert J Slattary in the December 1958 issue of The Helper, published by the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Model Railroad Association. Additional details are from pictures and dimensions taken by myself, pictures from Herb Kelsey, and from pictures in the K-36 Quick Pic Book. It is made to represent the locomotive as it appeared in the early 1940’s after the advent of the Flying Rio Grande lettering scheme. An earlier version with the “toilet bowl herald” should be released in the near future.

There are two features of 484 that warrant mention. The backup light on the tender only has a number window on the tender’s right side of the lamp. Don’t know why, but that is the way it was during that time period. Also, 484 had a vertical shield between the left walkway and the pilot deck, but did not have one on the right side.

487 had the distinction of carrying a “left side” backwards flying Rio Grande on the right side of the tender instead of the normally forward leaning herald.

Five K36’s had square handrails going up to their headlights. 484 and 487 have this feature. The other five had curved handrails and 489 is an example of this type.

These models were built by a team of five people. Howard Saunders did road testing, final physics adjustments, and file compression, Herb Kelsey supplied technical data, performed road testing and technical inspection, and packaged this release; Tom Werb assigned a crew to operate it; and Derek Miller provided the sound files and was deeply involved with the technical inspection. I received much encouragement from the for-mentioned individuals, as well as from many posters at Elvas Tower; and would probably have thrown the whole project in the trash can if it were not for them.

To install this locomotive, download the zip file to a location of your choice, unzip it and copy the K36_484_1946, K36_487_1946, K36_489_1946 and K36-CrewCar folders to your Trainset folder. This locomotive use a FreightAnim for some of the details so requires a "CrewCar" to put a crew into the cab. When creating consists, insert the “K-36 Crew Car" between the engine and the tender.
Last, but not least, the screenie is by Herb Kelsey

Enjoy, Bill