researching book

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Hi All!

I’m a novelist—historical fiction—currently I’m working on my second novel…guess what it’s about! That’s right, railroads. Specifically the Rio Grande Southern (I am partial to that line, since my grandfather was an engineer for them). I’m working through a whole bunch of info, but am coming up short in some areas. I need help!

The setting is 1905. The main character is 12 years old, so any suggestions on how she can get into trouble traveling from Ohio to Durango would be very appreciated (all aboard a train, getting dirty is good, she’ll have someone to help her get into trouble who is familiar with trains). What I want to do with this is show the innerworkings of a train.

I also am having a hard time finding the layout of the Chicago Depot in 1905. Anyone have any idea where to look? Same with Denver.

I know from Denver the line runs to Alamost and then she’d take a narrow guage to Durango…

Thanks for all your help! I’ll keep you posted on how things are going, if you like.

Josie

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1905

D&RG or C&S: Denver to Pueblo to Walsenburg / Standard Gauge

D&RG: Walsenburg to Alamosa / Standard Gauge (Dual gauge removed 1902)

D&RG: Alamosa to Antonito / Dual Gauge (probably N/G as Alamosa was a N/G hub)

D&RG: Antonito to Chama to Durango (N/G)

RGS: Durango to (?)

Talked to Archivist Kenton Forrest at the Colorado Railroad Museum? www.crrm.org for train timetables, etc.? [ I imagine Ken & Charlie Albi could give you all kinds of fodder for your project]

http://photoswest.org:8080/cgi-bin/cw_cgi?fullRecord+20608+594+623195875+41+1

http://www.denverunionstation.org/project_history/

Children were apt to get lost at Chicago - KC-Denver & Pueblo depots along the way and in the eating houses…(no Fred Harvey this trip)

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Josie, there were several railroad stations in Chicago, and several ways to get to Denver from Chicago. Not only would it be possible for someone to get lost in one of the Chicago stations, but going from one to another. I’m no expert at what was available for such a transfer at that particular time, unfortunately.

Do you have a precise location (or region, if fictitious) in Ohio for this journey to originate? A lot of what happens in Chicago would depend on where in Ohio we’re starting from.

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[:)]Ok, first I have to say, you all are awsome! Thanks so much for your help. She’ll be traveling from Dayton, Ohio to Chicago. Then on to Denver, etc.

My father traveled from the east coast through Chicago and on to Denver, etc, when he was a little guy (back before the earth cooled). Well, maybe around 1925. He traveled by a family pass (since his father worked for the railroad) and he told me that the train out of Chicago left in the evening and pulled into Denver the next morning. Then the train from Denver to Alamosa did the same—leave at night and then arrive in the morning. He also said that the Alamosa train to Durango was NG. He said that he checked his baggage and then carried a small bag for the trip. My book is set twenty years earlier. Do you think this all still applies?

I plan on my charactere meeting a “train rat” so to speak. It will be a ten-year-old boy who is traveling with his father, who works on the train, for a period of time. Consequently he shows her the ropes—and they get into a ton of trouble.

One of the things I do is learn as much as I can about a subject and then figure out ways to tell it so that it’s interesting to kids, fifth grade and up. Kinda like making veggies taste like gummybears. Because of this, if there are different depots that could have been used as a transfer point, if there is one that is still standing that would be great. I plan on locating an engine that would have been running the route during that time and climbing all over it. Same with various cars.

I’ll be walking part of the Rio Grande Southern route (hopefully) this spring, since that is were the majority of the action takes place.

Again, thanks for all your help. I’m very excited that I found this site. Maybe I can bounce some ideas off you all to see if they work.

Josie

5

If you get to La Veta CO, the inn there is a period hotel that has been tastefully restored. That might provide you with addiitonal background information.

dd

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I just ran across a Microsoft train simulator…picked it up of course! My main character (all of 12 years of age) is going to end up stopping a train—or some other kind of trouble—within the course of the adventure. The oldest train on the simulator is the flying Scottsman, from the 1920’s. Would this hold much in common with the engines running around 1905, NG? (There’s one of the engines from the line, that time in the Colorado Museum that you all told me about)?

By the way, thanks for the name of the museum guy in Denver. I’ll get a hold of him as soon as I have an official publication date for my first book and more of a time frame for my second (in a week or so).

Anything else I should include as vital train info???

Thanks again,
Josie[8D]

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Multiple flavors of D&RG narow gauge and RGS narrow gauge engines (plus the famed RGS “Galloping Geese”, too late [1931] for your endeavor) at the museum.

http://www.crrm.org/locomotives.htm Plenty of NG rolling stock around as well…plus all of the former Georgetown Loop (C&S) Coaches and Engines on temporary loan.

You will have a field day in Golden at CRRM, especially if you hit it between Tuesday and Saturday when the Archivist and most of the rest of the staff are there including the mechanical experts at the roundhouse (who can tell you chapter & verse about the workings of a period train like that)…I really would hope that Charlie and Kenton are both there during your visit.

Dirty Feathers
(Museum Volunteer)

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

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In 1905, steam is king. You will need an Official Guide to figure out a way to get from Dayton to Chicago via some other city. At 12ys old, it may be “easy” to miss a train & go via a route that is not so obvious.
Then you will have a cross town cabride in Chicago to the CB&Q Union station. Your subject may have spent some time in Chicago. At least the Loop & the elevated trains would still be there.
From Denver there may be further unique routings to get west to Durango.
A fun part of “history” may be for your character to “meet” varouus historical figures & talk about their experiences. Imagine meeting Mark Twain on a train. Ought to be room for a tall tale or two, about the “old west”.

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Mark Twain, I hadn’t thought about him, that would be a hoot!

My characters do just that—run into famous people that is. My first novel is title “The Wright Twist” and my main character and her brothers get mixed up with the Wright Brothers during their experiements in practical flight. It’s all quite fun and very detailed about how they went about it.

My third book (which I’m also researching now) is set in Leadville, so Doc Holliday, Maggie Brown, possibly John Johnson, the Tabors…and more? Will be romping around that book.

So far the railroad book doesn’t have many “famous people” just a bunch of great souls. Railroaders!

Thanks for all your help with the research. Sounds like I’m going to have to make the Golden Museum my home away from home soon. (I feel a road trip coming on!)

Feel free to throw out your ideas, I’m all ears.

All the best,
Josie

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Historical Fiction??? Fact or fiction, you can’t have both, it’s either true in all respects or it is fictionalized, what’s wrong using a fictionalized railway?(all the rest of the book is made up anyway isn’t it?) makes sense to me. It makes no sense to factualize a certain subject of a novel as this does not turn the novel into a little bit of non-fiction book.

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What would the Parmelee Transfer have been using between the Chicago stations then ? Jitneys ?

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Muddy feathers posted this one earlier, I think, and it deserves refreshing as it is a great on-line source of information.

Library of Congress has 19th century railroad maps scanned and available for on-line viewing. You have to download a helper application for the viewer to work correctly, but once you do, you can zoom in on these scanned maps in some detail. The latest Colorado D&RG map is 1881, but the routes to get from Denver to Durango are clearly defined.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrhome.html

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Also ought to spend some time at the Western History Collection at the Denver Public Library (PHOTOGRAPHIC & ARCHIVAL HOLDINGS) and the Colorado Historical Society across the street (13th & Broadway - Downtown) to flesh-out period information…CHS has site specific holdings for most of the small towns in the state.

If she encounters Spencer Penrose, John Cleveland Osgood, David Moffat, Baby Doe Tabor (don’t give up the mine!), Doc Susie, Emily Griffith, Otto Mears & crew, so much the better…

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Thanks for the further imput.

In regards to the historical fiction question—yes, it’s BOTH. I have as much historically accurate as possible, then I plop my character right into the middel of the situtation. For example, in my first book my character and her brothers spy on and eventually get to know the Wright Brothers. What they see the two brothers do is accurate down to the day it happened!

I’ll check out the people Mudchicken mentioned…Baby Doe Tabor will be coming up in my third book—it’s set in the 1880’s in Leadville, so the Tabors, Maggie Brown, Doc Holliday and (I think) John Johnson will be part of the story.

I’m having a time figuring out some people in Telluride (where Lee will be living) for her to interact with. From what I can tell, Nunn is out of town at the time, same with St. John. I need someone to teach my girl how to make biscuts!

Anyhow, thanks again for all your help. Things are coming together really well.

Josie

[(-D][(-D]

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Anyone know any name of engineers/firemen and/or conductors on the CB&Q in the early 1900’s?

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Josie, send your girl over to me at the Diner, and I’ll teach her how
to make biscuits!!

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http://www.burlingtonroute.com/

Talk to these folks, but please remember that the engine crews, unlike some of the passenger service staff & porters, do not stay with the train. They get on and off every crew district (every 100 miles or so - limit of the water, oil and safe maintenance of a steam engine) along, usually, with the engine. Kinda like changing for a fresh horse on the Pony Express. The geneologists have sources of names for railroad employees well pegged. These folks could probably direct you to them. ( and Mookie’s dad was not around yet - he was a CB&Q locomotive engineer at the transition from steam to diesel about 50 years later)

Richard C. Overton’s excellent book on the detailed corporate history of CB&Q might give you a little flavor for that time period on CB&Q. (BURLINGTON ROUTE - A History of the Burlington Lines)

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A couple of routes from Dayton to Denver

Chessie (B and O? Don’t remember) to Lima, Ohio, transfer to Erie RR station, then to Chicago.

“Q” used Union Station I think the Erie used the IC facility down by the lake. They are on opposite sides of the Loop.

Also, PRR from Dayton to St. Louis, several choices from there to Kansas City, thence to Denver (several choices, again). If the MP is used, another change at Pueblo to either the ATSF or the DRGW. No station changes – St. Louis = Union Station; Kansas City = Union Station; Denver = Union Station. The buildings standing now were not there in 1905.

Also, there were several Narrow Guage Railways out of Dayton – the Toledo, Cincinnati and St. Louis operated from Toledo to Cincinatti via Dayton which could provide connections with the PRR, NYC , Nickle Plate, Erie, B&O, C&O, L&N and Wabash going to Chicago, St. Louis or Memphis with connections to Kansas City and Denver via the CB&Q, ATSF, CRIP, MP among others.

You could have your heroine go on the TC&St.L to Delphos, OH, change to the PRR (then the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne and Chicago) which would have arrived at Union Station. This narrow guage was standard guaged about 1888 or so and carved up - you should carefully research this route if you plan to use it in your story because it is a real soap opera of re-orgs, purchases, sales, conversion, etc. You can find most of what you need in the following two books

The Nickle Plate Story by John A. Rehor Kalmbach 1965, pages 118-150 and 431-36.

Narrow Guage in Ohio; the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern Railway by John W. Hauck, Pruett Publishing 1986 (Bolder CO).

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Actually, Erie used Dearborn Station in Chicago----only about halfway around the Loop. The building itself is still there, though no longer used as a station.

I’m not very familiar with what was used as Union Station before the present building came along in (I think) the 1920s.

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Kenneo: Dayton to Lima would be B&O (Cincinnati Hamilton & Dayton/CH&D Toledo Line)

2/3rds of Denver Union Station was there in 1905…the cental part burned 99 years ago and was rebuilt as the larger structure you see today with the big neon sign on it.