Hello,
I’m looking for any maps and drawings of the major stops along the DRG&W Railroad. I’m looking for any buildings, yard maps and industries that were served by the railroad circa earily 1900s. Locations include: Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Walensburg, Alamosa, Antonito, Durango, Silverton, Ridgeway, Montrose, Delta, Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs, Detsero & Bond. If anyone has any info on these locations, please let me know.
Thanks,
Don
This is a great resource.
https://digital.denverlibrary.org/digital/collection/p15330coll22/id/81490/
Just put D&RGW in the search engine.
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
Here are the track alignment sheets for most of the Rio Grande network. http://www.drgw.net/info/TrackCharts. Granted many of these alignment sheets are for much later in time than you specified but in many areas the track didn’t change too much.
There is a lot of info on the DRGW on that site.
You might want to check out a website called historicaerials.com. This site should allow you to search the D&RGW route using both aerial photo surveys as well as USGS topographical maps. I was quite suprised to find topographical maps from 1899 that included the tracks of my modeling focus: the Santa Ana & Newport Railroad in Southern California. Equally surprising was aerial photo surveys from the 1920’s! I was able to look up maps and aerial photos from the 1950’s era I’m modeling to verify what I had modeled correctly and what I needed to fix.
Some of the aerial photos are a little grainy but I was able to identify specific buildings. As some of these buildings are still standing, I used Google Maps Street View for a better look.
Hello All,
Check out The Rio Grande Modeling & Historical Society.
They also have a Facebook page that you can subscribe to.
Hope this helps.
Early 1900s is vauge. If you mean pre-WWI it might help if you search for Denver and Rio Grande (D&RG) or Rio Grande Western (RGW), as the D&RGW did not become an entity until 1921.
As the others have said the D&RGW Historical Society has many maps, I think the entire system. Just don’t know the date. I purchased the three maps of Pueblo from them some years back.
Colorado Railroad Museum has a large Library they might have what you’re looking for
Back in grad school as a geology student, we had a library upstairs with tons of USGS topography maps includint 7.5 and 15 minuite quadrangles. I was able to follow the entire line from Denver to SLC and they were photo revised. There was a surprising amount of detail on them, including RR track configurations, buildings, roads etc.
I didn’t start this thread but thanks everyone those sources are fantastic.