>Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 04:22:51 -0700
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>From: dogyears <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Got CALICHE ?
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>Got CALICHE ?  http://www.swanet.org/caliche.html
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>RAIL CAR IN CENTRAL PARK TO BE RESTORED TO MINT CONDITION 02/15/99 09:31AM
>BOULDER, Colo. (AP) _ In its golden days, passenger car No. 280 was a deep
>red and featured red benches with velvet cushions  stuffed with horsehair.
>The oak walls gleamed beneath brass chandeliers, while coal heaters at
>either end of the car kept passengers warm and a water cooler waited to
>slake their thirst. Today, the 44-seat coach is Pullman green, housed
>between a 180,000-pound locomotive and a 30-foot-long caboose in Boulder's
>Central Park, where it has been for more than 45 years. Covered in several
>spots by graffiti and suffering from rotting wood, weather damage and
>vandalism, the 118-year-old car has seen far better days. The car, named
>"Rico" when it came off the factory lines in 1880, is poised once more to
>become a showcase of the iron horse that helped build the West. A $125,000
>grant, given by the State Historical Fund through the Colorado Historic
>Society last month, will help the Parks and Recreation Department bring the
>coach back to its former glory starting this spring. The department also
>will use $40,000 in matching funds from a 1995 voter-approved sales tax and
>hopes to tap into $10,000 the nonprofit Boulder County Railway Historical
>Society is working to raise. Railroad buffs Jason Midyette and Matt
>Armitage, who run the society, see an opportunity to save a vulnerable
>historic treasure. "Once they're gone, they're gone forever. They don't
>make them anymore," said Armitage, who dresses in period vest and cap when
>he works as a weekend brakeman on the Georgetown railway loop. "It's time
>for this generation to do their part to keep it around." The coach, which
>carried people on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, last made
>trips in the early 1950s between Durango and Silverton. While it never
>graced the vista-filled Switzerland trail, linking Boulder with mountain
>towns to the west, it is a rare example of the type of narrow gauge
>railroad coach that passengers rode to Ward, Eldora and the long-gone town
>of Sunset. Many people rode the route "to experience the sensation of
>careening around the extinct craters of the volcanic age ... over the
>famous Switzerland Trail of America," as a 1913 brochure advertised. The
>engine, coach and caboose in Central Park were purchased by a group of
>train enthusiasts, who collected mostly small contributions from several
>hundred people, and then were given to the city in 1953. The locomotive, in
>service on the Switzerland Trail from 1898 until a flood wiped out the
>route in 1919, pulled ore, passengers and supplies up and down the canyon.
>The first caboose was blown up by vandals with dynamite in 1958 and later
>replaced in 1975 with one from the Denver Rio Grand Western that was bought
>from a rancher who had used it as a storage shed. In the coach, an
>emergency brake cord above the seats could be yanked by any passenger to
>stop the train. A toilet in a tiny bathroom at one end of the car spilled
>its contents directly onto the tracks as the engine steamed along. In the
>dusty, faded interior, Midyette pointed out a series of wood beams that
>bolster the weakened frame, torn cushions and missing lights and window
>panes. "Some of this undoubtedly will have to be replaced it's just too
>rotted," said Midyette, a property manager whose love of trains began at
>age 3. He hopes as much of the original woodwork and parts can be salvaged
>in the restoration. The cost of returning the coach to a pristine state is
>estimated at $175,000. Doug Hawthorne, superintendent of the parks
>department, said the work will be bid out and likely done by a company in
>Colorado. The coach, built by a Wilmington, Del., company, will be
>dismantled, and the restoration could take as long as a year. It isn't yet
>clear whether the coach will come to rest again in Central Park, but
>Hawthorne said it will be better protected from the elements and probably
>opened to the public on select days. "There aren't too many groups or
>companies that have the ability to do this type of thing," said Hawthorne.
>"It's going to be beautiful once it's completed."
>