Posted 03 September 2026 - 08:18 AM
Just a note--the Rio Grande did not adopt the "flying" Rio Grande herald until 1940. It was designed by a secretary in the D&RGW headquarters in Denver in 1936 or 1938 in an employee contest to design a new herald for the railroad. Her prize was $100, about a month's salary in those days.
As for 485, likely due to a leaky throttle, she "slept walked" into the Salida turntable pit in 1953 after just being recently overhauled, sustaining serious damage, including a broken frame. She was scrapped in 1954 in Salida. Interestingly, D&RGW 489 was being overhauled in the backshop and many of 485's parts wound up on 489, some discovered being stamped "485" when 489 was being overhauled on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad in the 1980's. 489 was also the last locomotive overhauled in Salida before the Salida backshop closed in 1957. 489 was one of the K-36's assigned to Salida before the narrow-gauge line connecting Poncha Jct. to Alamosa was removed in 1951. K-36's assigned to Salida in 1951 were 480, 481, 483, 485, 486, 487, and 489. 487 was assigned to the Crested Butte Branch and, like 474 before her, was equipped with a yard pilot, the only K-36 so equipped. If I recall my history correctly, 482 was sent via standard gauge flatcar from Alamosa to Salida in 1952, and 487 was similarly sent to Alamosa. When 487 was overhauled in Alamosa not too long thereafter, her yard pilot was removed, and with no regular pilot available, she was just fitted with a front snowplow which she wore until well into the Cumbres & Toltec era. I believe even they only replaced it temporarily for photo freight use, then put the plow back on it.
After 1952, with the closure of the C&FI "Big Mine" (coal) at Crested Butte, and the near demise of all traffic over Marshall Pass, the remaining K-36's were slowly sent back to Alamosa via standard gauge flatcars. 489 handled the scrap trains on Marshall Pass in 1955. After standard-gauging of the Monarch Branch in 1956, 489 was sent to Alamosa in early 1957, as I recall. No K-37's remained in Salida after 1951, all being sent to Alamosa before the "Valley Line" was removed in 1951. An interesting trivia note about the Valley Line from Poncha Jct. to Alamosa: on the "curvy" Colorado narrow-gauge D&RGW, the Valley Line held the record for decades of having the longest piece of tangent (straight) track of any railroad in the United States, 53 miles without a curve. Some of the Valley Line did survive for some years after 1951, between Alamosa and Hooper (not pronounced with a "long O" like "hoop", but a "short O"), carrying agricultural traffic.
I thought that I would add one further note. For most of the years after their rebuilding from standard gauge 2-8-0's to narrow-gauge 2-8-2's until 1950, the K-37 locomotives were mostly assigned to Salida, to be able to handle the heavy trains of Crested Butte coal and Monarch limestone. At that time, the oil and gas drilling boom had not started in the San Juan Basin, so the slightly lighter K-36's were often assigned to Alamosa. By 1950-51, the D&RGW recognized that the oil and gas boom in the San Juan Basin was going to need the heavy power, and traffic over Marshall Pass was rapidly declining, so the heavier K-37's were re-assigned to Alamosa, the noted K-36's were assigned to Salida. If one examines historical photographs of the era, one can clearly see that big "switch" in motive power between the Alamosa and Salida terminals. And about the K-28's--for most of their D&RGW lives they were assigned to passenger and light freight trains, including the San Juan out of Alamosa (often misnamed the "San Juan Express" by railfans, though the D&RGW never called the train that), the Shavano out of Gunnison, and the mixed passenger-freight train between Alamosa, Colorado and Santa Fe, Mexico. The Shavano was discontinued in 1940 and the Santa Fe Branch was abandoned in 1941, so most of the K-28's became "surplus", except for the San Juan and (then) occasional use on the Silverton Branch. That is why the D&RGW didn't object when the Government requisitioned 7 of them--470, 471, 472, 474, 475, 477, and 479--for use on the White Pass & Yukon in 1942--all 7 being scrapped shortly after the end of World War II, when they were just over 20 years old. That left 473, 476, and 478, all of which still exist today on the Durango & Silverton. 474 was the "odd duck" of the K-28 series. It was the only K-28 not equipped with a steam line through the tender to supply steam for heat for passenger trains. So, its spent its D&RGW life in freight service, serving much of it as the power on the Crested Butte Branch. For that service, it had a yard pilot, and that is likely the yard pilot put on K-36 487 when it took over Crested Butte Branch service some time after 474 went to Alaska.
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