Pikes Peak "N" Gineers Model Railroad Club

THE RAILHEAD

SEEKING SERIOUS N-SCALE MODEL RAILROAD FUN SINCE OCTOBER 13, 1989

Important Dates
Layout Hours and Address
Just a reminder
GATS details
Traveling Layout update
Micro Trains GN release!
Help your engines!
How to boot a steam locomotive
A cure for scarce cars!
The Colorado Road
Woooooo, Woooooo!

Thanks to Joe's efforts, we had a good, successful open house February 20 and 21.

Joe was our capable dispatcher. Don, Paul Schemm, Rick, Larry, Mike, Lois, Steve, Greg, Charley, Ann, Dan and Debbie Benton helped out Saturday. Debbie Benton was uniquely helpful. She donated two strands of her hair so that we could put Vulture Gulch's buzzards down where they could compete more effectively with Rick's bear for the lunch Rick planted.

Larry got a chance to view one of our open houses from the inside of our layout for the first time. His freight train ran for hours on the red line.

Mike made the open house an opportunity to video tape our trains on Saturday and again on Sunday. He captured most of our trains. And, there's a good selection. We'll use the video at the Great America Train Show as a part of our traveling layout exhibit.

Late Saturday, after the visitors had gone, Rick climbed up and down a ladder several times after playing with one wire after another. When his legs fell off, he was finished. The result: all four speakers were working again, giving us surround-sound train music. Thanks, Rick, for your persistence in making us better.

Our train club was honored by a visit by Mary Stevens Humphreys who donated 30 copies of her booklet, Cog Train to the Zoo. This 14 page, out of publication book tells the story of the only miniature cog train in the world, the Broadmoor and Cheyenne Mountain Cog Railroad, which ran from the Broadmoor Hotel to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo during the 1938 to 1974 period. While miniature, it was no small thing. It carried more than 20,000 passengers.

Joe was pretty sick Saturday. But, he took his dispatcher duties seriously and managed to endure most of Saturday. Sunday, he was down for the count.

On Sunday, Rick volunteered to take over the Dispatcher position. Under his direction, Ann, Mary Peck, Margaret, Craig, Sam, Don, Mike, Kirt, Charley, Steve, and Paul ran trains and talked with visitors and each other.

All would probably agree with Paul's statement later, "I had fun!"

This is just a reminder to all members that THE RAILHEAD presents the minutes of club meetings in an edited form for confidentiality and space considerations.

Please see our Stationmaster for an official and complete copy of the minutes of any meeting.

Webmaster's Note:  Meeting minutes will not be published on the website.
PPNG members may obtain minutes from the Stationmaster.

The dispatcher (guy in charge) is Joe Morgan.
Dates: Saturday, March 27 and Sunday, March 28.
Times: See Joe.
Sign up at the club.
Transportation will be car pooling.

Joe and a couple of members pulled out the Traveling Layout one February Saturday afternoon. It was the first time the Traveling Layout had been taken from storage in about two years.

Joe and his crew spent the afternoon repairing scenery, module by module. They dusted track and buildings and scenery. They glued buildings, people, cars, trucks and trees back into place. When they were finished, the layout looked pretty good. It probably won't win any prizes at the March GATS, but it still looks pretty good.

But, does it work? Well, we'll soon find out.

Joe scheduled another work session on February 26, Saturday. He reserved the conference room above our club layout so that we would have enough room to assemble the layout.

Saturday came. Joe didn't. He was still suffering from the sickness that downed him during our open house.

Rick, Ann, Paul Schemm and Charley showed up. They found food, a big table and a number of chairs in the conference room. After clearing a space, Rick and Charley started carrying the modules up the winding stairs to the conference room. Paul carried up the module legs, back boards, Plexiglas, and all of the other paraphernalia that goes with the layout. He also took up Rick's drill.

Once just about everything was in the conference room, it became crystal clear that there wasn't enough room to assemble the layout.

After a short conference, they decided to set up everything outside. Charley and Rick carried the first module down the winding stairs and through the doors to the outside. Paul carried down Rick's drill.

Back up in the conference room again, they decided that it would be easier to carry the modules down the winding stairs if the legs were taken off the modules. Paul went downstairs and retrieved Rick's drill.

Module legs came off. Rick and Charley carried the next module down the winding stairs. Paul carried down Rick's drill. (He loved that drill).

This job reminded the workers of how out of shape they were. After a while, the three puffing workers had everything down and outside. Modules were clamped to each other after some of the missing clamps were found. At this point, it became clear that most of the connecting pieces of track were also missing.

The rest of the afternoon was spent making new connecting pieces of track, color coding and installing them, and searching for other missing items, such as the power supply that the club had used to operate the layout.

Finally, the crew determined that the wiring still worked. Engines ran. Great!

A 24 inch section of track was found to be out of gauge. It has to be replaced.

After five hours of work, the crew carried everything back into the club room and went home.

Whew!

Attention all you Great Northern fans out there! Micro Trains is releasing a two car set of Great Northern box cars painted and lettered pullman green.

The prototypes were built in the late 1940's and appear to be prototypically correct.

The set sells for under $30.00.

The engine groaned and buzzed louder. It just crawled along. Something had to be done.

I am like most of us. As long as the engine runs, we don't do any preventative maintenance, except for an occasional drop of oil.

I had bought my engine second hand. Contrary to the sales pitch, it had run many, many miles. I ran it for many, many more miles. Gradually, its performance became less and less satisfactory.

I spent two evenings taking it completely apart.

The motor came out. All gears were cleaned of all of the old, black, stiff grease and oil.

I even took the trucks apart. All gears and wheels were thoroughly cleaned. (An old toothbrush is real helpful here).

I was amazed at the amount of hair, fibers, and just plain old crud that I found. Some of it was solid, not just a thick black paste.

After I reassembled the engine, I tested it. It ran with ease and smoothness at all speeds. Not only that, it ran with less electricity than it used to. Hmmm. Is there a message here?

How many of our engines are actually fighting themselves? Besides trying to pull the trains we assemble behind them, the engines have to deal with the dirt, scenery bits, and other debris that constantly get into the gears and settle there.

So a suggestion. Take a closer look at your engines. You may be surprised at the amount of dirt you find. Take the dirt away and you may be able to pull longer trains.

It's 3:30 in the morning, as my alarm goes off. Ouch. Today, it's my turn to get old 153 up to speed for Sunday operations. I drag myself out of bed, bleary-eyed, and shower quickly. An hour later, the gravel in the parking lot crunches beneath my tires as I drive up to the gate of the museum.

I take my coffee and rolls with me as I open the trainshed, and flick on the lights. There, three feet away, are the cylinders of the 153, a 1922 product of the American Locomotive Company. The sight never fails to astonish me. One hundred and eighty-four tons of people-magnet, as my friend Al is fond of describing her. I walk down the left side of the locomotive, admiring her Brobdingnagian proportions inside the building, and climb up the gangway into the cab. Time to get to work.

I check the water glass and check the bottom try-cock. Nothing. Guess the last fireman didn't fill the boiler with the injector before shutting down, as he was supposed to. Maybe there's a leak. I open the front blowdown valve for a second, and am rewarded with a gush of water from the front of the locomotive. OK, it's just a little low. Climbing down the engineer's side, I grab a firehose, and connect it to the rear blowdown. Back in the cab, I open the rear blowdown, and climb down again to turn on the water.

Back up the ladder to the top of the tender. I check the dipstick, and note the number of gallons of Bunker C fuel oil remaining, and check it against the log from shutdown last week. No leaks there. Further back, I open the tank lid, and peer down into the murk. The water level is only about 5 feet down, so there aren't any serious leaks in the tank. When you work with steam locomotives, especially old ones, you tend to worry a lot about leaks. I grab another firehose that hangs from the ceiling back here, and drape it down into the tank. Down the aft ladder, and over to the valve to start filling up the tender. Forward, I grab our Rube Goldberg stack fan, and climb up over the pilot, up the steps, and up on the smokebox. After removing the stack cover, and stowing it in the notch provided in the running board, I set the fan in the stack to provide a small amount of draft for the boiler. Toss the electrical cord over the side, and climb back down to the ground to plug it in.

Back to the cab. Looped under the fireman's seat is an electrical cord. I uncoil it and drape it over the wall, and plug it in. I climb up into the cab, open the engineer's seatbox, and remove a trouble light. Plugging it into an electrical outlet in the cab, I open the firebox door and peer inside. There is a huge "bone" of unburned carbon in the front of the firebox, right in front of the burner. Damn. I go out to the tool car (an old Southern boxcar) and grab a pickaxe and a bucket. Back up in the cab, I hang the trouble light right outside the firebox door, toss the pickaxe into the firebox, and set the bucket on the floor in front of the door. Feet first, I squeeze into the firebox, feeling for the floor, being careful not to dislodge any of the firebrick if I can help it. Inside, I reach outside for the trouble light, locate the pickaxe, and break up the carboniferous mass. I toss the loose pieces out the door and into the bucket, and use the light to inspect the firebox, looking for loose or leaky staybolts, making sure the firebrick lining the sides of the firebox is in reasonably good condition, and checking the burner for obstructions. All I find is a couple of loose bricks, so I replace them, push my tools back out the door, and climb back out. I look back inside to make sure I didn't leave anything inside. Once, I left the pickaxe inside, and all that was left at the end of the day was the head.

I check my pocket watch (have to look the part, you know). 5 AM. Time to light a fire.

Starting up an oil-fired steam locomotive is a tricky process. First, everything is steam-operated, including the tank heater that warms the fuel so it will flow, so it's not just a matter of lighting it up and waiting. I check the water glass, and see that there is now half an inch showing. Enough. I shut the rear blowdown valve, climb down, shut off the water, and disconnect the hose.

On the back of the tender is a 55 gallon drum of kerosene. I climb up and open the valve at the drum, and climb back down into the cab. I unchain the kerosene burner from the brakestand, and set it up, pointed into the firebox. I connect a hose to the kerosene line coming down off the tender, and another hose to an air compressor outside the building. I take a softball-sized piece of waste, and soak it in kerosene for a minute. Placing it on a shelf of firebrick just inside the firedoor, I whip out a book of matches and light them (yes, the whole book). I then light the waste, and let it get started burning, plug in the burner, and start it up. After a little finagling with the fuel/air mixture, I get a fine mist of kerosene and air that ignites with a WHOOMP! sound. It's 5:30 AM. The burner is now beginning to warm up the engine, and I can take a break. Time for my coffee and rolls.

It takes a long time to heat 5000 gallons of water to boiling, so I finish my roll, and get out the oil can. There are a few hundred lubrication points on a steam locomotive, and as engineers and firemen have, from time immemorial, I begin the ritual of "oiling around". Starting under the fireman's side of the cab, I oil the trailing truck journals, springs and support bearings. Moving forward, there are the spring lube bearings, support bearings and slides-all get the 80 weight treatment.

I work my way up on top of the pilot and the steps, along the left side of the boiler to the bell mounting, and the air compressor top ends, where I unscrew the caps and pour about a pint of oil into each reservoir. At the very rear of the boiler, I step up on the handrail, and lube the electrical generator. I duck in the front door of the cab on the fireman's side, to oil the firing valve shaft and gears. Refilling the oil can, I open up the hydrostatic lubricator on the backhead above the brake gauges on the engineer's side. There are five feeds on this instrument, but only one fill point. I pour about a quart of oil in, until it starts to overflow. Taking a rag and wiping up, I replace the filler cap and exit out the front door onto the right side running board.

A few drops of oil for the automatic bell ringer and I head down the stairs at the front, and repeat the process for the running gear on the right side of the engine, heading back towards the cab. The power reverse gear is the only additional mechanism on this side. I pick up a larger oil can and work my way around the tender, filling all the journals and checking the condition of the axle packing and bearing brasses. Back in the cab, I complete the oiling job by lifting the apron between the locomotive and tender, and oiling the bearing surfaces for the drawbar. I jump back down and refill the oil cans from a 55-gallon drum equipped with a hand pump.

By now, the kerosene burner has warmed the boiler to the point where the first bubbles of steam are forming above the crownsheet. In order for the Bunker C fuel oil to flow through the two inch pipes to the main burner in the front of the firebox, it needs to be heated to a little over 110 degrees. (Cold, it has the consistency of jello). To that end, I reach up and open the tank heater valve on the front of the tender, to ensure that as soon as the boiler is producing steam, some of it will start to warm its main fuel supply.

Up to now, the only noise has been the dull roar of the kerosene burner and whatever banging around I caused as I went around oiling things. Now, if you are standing in the right place, you can hear the water in the boiler starting to boil, and the occasional creak as the metal expands. The beast is beginning, ever so faintly, to live. Just a stirring, but it is portentous.

There is as yet no perceptible movement on the big brass steam gauge in the center of the backhead. I need about 10 pounds of steam pressure in order to light the main burner, and no less than 50 to 70 pounds of pressure to get an injector to pick up and deliver feedwater to the boiler. This is why I was so concerned about having enough water in the boiler in the first place: it's a balancing act. Too much water, and it takes too long to heat up. Too little, and you risk not raising enough steam to inject more water into the boiler before the water level drops so low that you uncover the crownsheet and blow yourself to kingdom come.

7 AM. I hear another car in the lot as I fill the sand dome on top of the boiler. It's Frank, bringing the ice and Gatorade for the crew cooler on the tender. It's about time. It's getting distinctly warm inside the trainshed at this point, since I have already burned about fifteen gallons of kerosene and intend to burn about thirty more. I adjust the flow on the burner up a notch as the steam gauge just begins, barely! to move off the zero peg.

I take another break at this point and chew the fat with Frank, talking about the weather, his grandchildren, and whatever else strikes us. Frank is a retired DC-8 pilot, and has taken to volunteering at the Museum to keep himself busy. Of course, we both keep an ear cocked for the burner and frequently check the water glass. Eventually, Frank leaves for breakfast, and I climb back up into the cab. Five pounds on the steam gauge. Good enough to start the blower, I figure, and get some real draft through the boiler. I walk out the left running board, reach down and yank the plug for the stack fan out of the wall, and reach up to pull the fan out of the stack. Sure is hot here!

Lowering the fan to the ground, I go back to the cab and crack the blower valve open. I am balancing a need to draft the engine with the need to not use steam profligately. I am watching the flames from the kerosene burner as I turn the valve, trying to get the draft up enough so that the flames are sucked into the flues a little bit in order to greatly increase the heating area (and thus make steam quicker), but not so much that I am pulling an excessive amount of cold air into the firebox through its vents on the door. This maneuver is complicated by the fact that the blower valve is right at hand in the cab, where it should be, and the blower itself is forty feet away from the stack, which leads to a 3 to 5 second delay between moving the valve and seeing a response of any kind.

I finally get things balanced enough to start making preparations to light the main burner. Fuel oil passes from the tender, through a 2 inch pipe with flexible joint to run alongside the firebox on the left hand side inside a 4 inch sleeve that functions as an inline fuel line heater. I start the process by opening the fuel valve on the tender, and the steam valve to the inline heater on the locomotive. Fuel will flow down the pipes to the back of the main burner, where only the burner valve will hold it back.

Eight pounds on the steam gauge. Things are happening faster now, with the increased draft and intensity of the fire. Wisps of steam curl and most of the valves that are open to the outside, as it leaks in small quantities past 60 year old valve seats. A steady drip of condensation is running from the exhaust line from the fuel tank heater at the rear of the tender. The smell of hot oil is becoming richer. Water drips from the drain cocks of the air compressors on the left side of the engine. The hollow whooshing sound of the blower adds to the noise level.

By now, it's 8:30 AM and I have been up for about 5 hours. My legs are starting to feel rubbery from all the climbing up and down over the engine. The steam gauge inches towards 10, and I get out some waste and soak it in kerosene. From on top of the tender, I draw a ten foot long metal shovel with a small blade, and set my piece of waste on the end. Closing the blower valve to prevent shocking the boiler with cold air, I shut off the kerosene supply to the small burner. The silence is striking. Since I lit the burner, its muted roar has become the constant audible background to my work. Now, as I pull it away from the firedoor, all that can be heard is the hissing of steam in the heaters and the occasional expansion creaks of the boiler. I set my long shovel on the bottom edge of the firedoor, and light this second "wick." Sliding it carefully into the firebox, I take close aim, and toss it towards the front end of the firebox, shooting for a spot right in front of the main burner. It lands about ten inches away, directly in line with the burner. Good enough.

This is the trickiest part of the whole affair. If I haven't gotten the Bunker C fuel oil hot enough, I am going to have a very difficult time indeed trying to light this burner. Simultaneously, I open the blower valve about half a turn, and open the steam valve to the main burner about a full turn. I look in the peephole in the firedoor to make sure I havenÕt blown out my burning piece of waste, and then step away from the door. I grasp the firing valve lever and open it by pulling it about four inches towards me, allowing the fuel to run down into the burner, where it will be scattered into a fine mist by the steam jets that surround the orifice.

A jet of dark red, sooty flame blows out the peephole of the firedoor as the explosion rattles every loose item in the cab. I push the firing valve back about two inches, and begin opening the blower valve to create enough draft to supply oxygen for the fire, watching the color brighten towards orange. I look out at the stack, and see that there is still a column of opaque, black smoke issuing forth. The further I open the valve, the more oxygen I am supplying via draft, and presently the exhaust begins to clear. The fire is now a bright yellowish white, and I examine it through the peephole, adjusting the steam valve for the burner to try and fan the spray of fuel to provide an optimum bloom of flame that just about fills the firebox, but is not so energetic that the flame front gets ripped away from the burner, so that it keeps reigniting from sheer heat, a condition leads to a series of hollow sounding explosions and a great loss of efficiency. Several rounds of adjustments later, everything is stable, there is a light haze in the exhaust and we are on the way. The steam gauge will begin to rise more rapidly, with the much greater thermal energy available from this fire.

I examine the water glass. Up to this point, the level of water had been rising due to expansion, but we will now begin to evaporate water at a much greater rate, and the level will begin to fall. So far, the water is about halfway up the glass, which is good for this point in the process. I double-check by opening the middle try-cock and indeed get a mixture of steam and hot water, indicating that there is not a bubble or blockage giving me a false reading in the water glass. I proceed to secure the kerosene blower and its assorted paraphernalia, and grab my bucket of bones as I climb down from the cab.

It's eighty degrees outside, and it strikes me in the face as a cool breeze after the cab of the locomotive. I go into the rest room, grab a towel and soak it in cold water, to wrap around my head and face for a few minutes. I take the bucket of carbon rocks to the trash dumpster, heave them in, and take the bucket and pickaxe back to the tool car.

As I look around the museum grounds, I see that some of the other volunteers have begun to arrive. Shirly, who runs the ticket office, is here with her husband, who is currently the President of the museum's Board of Directors, and John, who takes care of the Silver Crescent, both say hello. I return the greetings and head back to the engine.

Already, the boiler pressure has reached 25 pounds. As I watch, I can see the needle rising. I grab a bucket of feedwater treatment (chemicals that reduce scaling and rust inside the boiler) and climb up over the tender and head to the hatch. The water level is now less than a foot from the top, and I dip the bucket and mix the chemicals with a loose piece of pipe. Pouring the mixture into the tank, I head back to the cab and check the water column. Forty pounds of steam, and the glass is now showing about a half an inch of water.

I open the main feed valves from the tender, and pull back the lever on the fireman's injector. Using a feedwater injector is a tricky business; you must pull the handle back and watch the overflow pipe beneath you for water, so you will know when the injector is primed, then pull all the way back on the handle to start injecting water through the feedwater pipes into the boiler through the check valves, which are mounted on the front of the boiler, where the water is cooler, and where the feedwater won't cold-shock the hottest parts of the boiler, near the rear.

Right now, I get only steam from the overflow pipe, which is what I expect. The residual water in the pickup lines is far too hot in inject, (since the injector works on a temperature differential, the cold feedwater causes the steam to condense, producing a vacuum, which is then used to force water into the boiler under pressure), so I close the overflow valve on the front of the injector and open the handle, which causes the steam in the injectors to be forced through the four inch water supply line to the tender, pushing the residual water in the feed lines back into the tender, and producing a massive amount of bubbling in the tender. I can feel the tender dancing under the force of the backflow. I shut off the injector, and cool water from the tender rushes back into the feedlines.

3645 Jeannine Drive, Suite 108

Tuesday: 7:00 - 9:00 PM

Fridays: 7:00 - 9:00 PM

Saturday: 1:00 - 4:00 PM

Fifty-five pounds on the steam gauge, and I reopen the overflow shutoff valves, prime the injector, and open it all the way. Cool water rushes into the boiler along its three inch diameter feedlines, in the process sounding like an enormous toilet flush. The steam gauge stops its steady advance, as I am putting too much cold water into the boiler for it to recover at such a low pressure, but the water level is rising. When it reaches 2/3 of the glass, I shut the injector. I can now busy myself with other details while steam continues to build.

I grab a stick of grease, and walk around the engine greasing the main rod bearings. As the chore is completed, I look at my watch, and realize it is nearing 10 AM. Back in the cab, the steam gauge is approaching 100 pounds, nearly enough to move the engine if need be, but there's nearly an hour left. I adjust the burner, blower, and firing valve, and climb up to the engineer's seatbox. I open the steam feed to the hydrostatic lubricator, and adjust the flow to the air compressors' feed line. I reach up to the steam turret, and open the feed valve for the air compressors. This action is rewarded by an immediate chorus of thumping and hissing as the air compressors start their pistons and begin driving air into the main reservoir for the brakes and power reverse. I check the water glass, note that it is back down to a half glass, and start the injector on the engineer's side.

I climb down out of the cab and shut the drain valves for the air compressors, and watch them run for a few seconds. There is about 200 pounds of reciprocating mass in each compressor, so it's important to keep an eye on them so that if there is a problem, they can be shut down before they do some serious damage. I go around and shut off the various air drain valves as well.

Back in the cab, I open the valve for the electrical generator, causing a jet-like whine as the turbine that drives it spools up. The lights in the cab come on, as well as the headlight, and I can at last cast free from ground-based power. The water glass is full, and I shut off the engineer's injector, and watch as the air pressure comes up in the brake system and main reservoir. Steam pressure is approaching 130 pounds, and I open the cylinder cocks and set the brakes. To warm the cylinders, I open the throttle just a hair, allowing steam to travel from the throttle valve in the steam dome, through the dry pipe inside the boiler, and through valves to the cylinders. I exercise the power reverse to admit steam to both sides of the cylinders, and then set back to neutral and close the throttle.

I hear a splashing sound at the rear of the tender, indicating that it is now full. I step down, and shut off the valve, climb up the rear ladder to stow the hose and close the cistern hatch.

The locomotive is now ready to move. I climb back into the cab and blow a short blast on the whistle, a prearranged signal that lets the crew for the first run know that she is ready. Steve and Mark show up, and I make a big deal out of turning the locomotive over to them. My job is finished, for now.

I am dead tired, unwilling to even expend the effort to climb down out of the cab. Steve and his crew begin to move the engine out into the sunlight, as I wonder why I put myself through this every third Sunday. I am standing in the gangway as we roll out of the building with the bell ringing, and I see a little girl with her hands over her ears, mouth in a little O, halfway hiding behind her father, and I am reminded.

[Thanks to Larry Cothren for bringing this article to our attention-ed.]

Found stenciled on an old Union Pacific box car this week:

Unload me. Free me.
Someone else needs me.

Editor: Charles J. Bay

THE RAILHEAD is published monthly by the Pikes Peak 'N' Gineers Model Railroad Club, P.O. Box 594, Monument, CO 80132; Telephone 719-488-9318. Subscription is covered through membership in Pikes Peak 'N' Gineers, a nonprofit corporation. ©1999. All rights reserved. We assume letters, questions, news releases, and club items are contributed gratis.

Exhibit marks 100th anniversary of Colorado & Southern railway

The Colorado & Southern was the state's home-grown railroad. It was, in fact, known as the "The Colorado Road."

Its pride and joys were the Texas Zephyr, flagship of the road's passenger fleet and the fastest train between Denver and Dallas, and steam locomotive No. 900, one of the prettiest ever built.

The Zephyr, the 900 and even the railroad have faded into the mists of American railroad history, but the C&S lives on at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden with an exhibit marking the railroad's 100th anniversary.

The C&S came into existence in 1898, a merger of the narrow-gauge Denver South Park & Pacific and the Colorado Central. It thrived until 1908 when its standard-gauge lines were merged into the Burlington [Chicago, Quincy and Burlington], and it was finally abandoned in 1982.

The main line of the C&S, which some wags suggested stood for "Cinders & Smoke" because it was the last Class I railroad in the region to rid itself of steam locomotives, remains a major Front Range north-south rail link.

The CRRM exhibit is the work of Bob Jensen, a retired civilian employee who worked as an illustrator and exhibits specialist at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

His work at the railroad museum is strictly out of a life-long love of trains.

"I've always loved trains," said Jensen, 56. "My father was a railroader. He worked in the steam shops for the Burlington and got a pass, so I did a lot of train riding. When the museum moved to Golden in 1959, when I was a teenager, I would come out on Saturdays as a volunteer, laying track or whatever they needed."

Jensen drew on the museum's extensive collection of photographs of the C&S' trains and depots for the current exhibit, one that includes passenger-boarding signs for the Texas Zephyr and for the railroad's Train No. 7 between Colorado Springs and Dallas and other memorabilia. The show also features bits and pieces of the impressive 900 2-10-2 locomotive, scrapped by the railroad in 1959.

The next exhibit in the CRRM series opens March 21 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the famed California Zephyr that traversed Colorado on its run under the flags of the Burlington, Rio Grande and Western Pacific railroads between Chicago and San Francisco.

The museum will use the occasion to officially unveil its restored orange-and-black Rio Grande F-units that frequently powered the Zephyr. Among those expected to attend opening ceremonies are Leonard Bernstein, retired passenger-service agent for the Rio Grande, and others who worked aboard the luxury train.

Also on tap at the museum are previews of "Trains on the Plains" (opening in May) and "How Livestock Travelled by Train," due to coincide with next year's National Western Stock Show and Rodeo in January [2000].

What: Colorado Railroad Museum
Where: 17155 W. 44th Ave. [Golden]
When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day (except Thanksgiving and Christmas).
Information: 303-279-4591.