Gunnison news-champion., 1915-12-17
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Most'ose Papers Adsocsse
Unssed EGost TO Secuse
Tbs Inpsosoneut.

The Denver Chamber of Commerce
gave a complimentary dinner to Presi-
DENT Nudge Of the Denver a RIO Grsnde
railroad the other day. sad the nev
president was called upon for q speech
After speaking of the fact that Il was
the desire Of the majority Of the owners
of the road TO make IL an independent
Institution and centrslize its efforts to
ward the building 40 Of Colorado. he
said. with respect to the stsndsrsiizIng
of the entire system:
'-Prscsically all of the main lines of
the Denver 4 Rio Grande have been
reconstructed once and some Of them
twice since the road was FIRST built A
large part Of the remaining marrow
gage lines. in order to serve the state.
ought to be standard gagged. but the
cost to do this Is very great, ~ the pre-
sent lines over Marshall pass and the
Cumbres mountain are not practical
for broad gage operation and new ioca-
tion must be found.
This does not look very promising for
our broad gsGe. In fact, il looks de-
cidedly as if the dear old Rio Grsnde
he'd again decided to pass up the West
em Slope. For some time noe tAs
Durango Pennington people have he'd
their backs up and were making pser
eress toward securing either U. 2. -
Santa Fe branch up from New hex'es
to give decent railroad connections for
thst rich and populous section. In e.
der to head OF this reel danger - its
m0aapoly of ssuthvestesN Cs,oesAe, ~
hsssA ssGs is Asvt " - hsiN ssuaA.
- - 0saneins - - tshD ~ -
la sususs - ''11aGuAnn - b -
lRDsekah - hssa1 - eOnuntins. !"
fhis 10 I'll nonsense fos cosnpsesws
p.ilvssA nea ssy tAst with the ssnbes
sf broad gage ties already laid and the
IS pound steel nov in use, the road from
Sslids to Gunnison and Crested Butte
could be standardized in " hours. The
road west TO Montrose would take long
er for heavier steel should be laid, but
il is no big job at this stage Of the game
and if the grades are too steep they can
be changed piecemeal. However, the
excuse goes unless the whole Western
Slope gets busy and makes its influence
felt
The Montrose Press says: '1f the
road cannot be standardized on the pre-
sent roadbed simply by Strengthening
out curves by cutting q little deeper in
TO the mountain, or grading fills a little
deeper, we fear it will be very long
time before we can be assured of a stan
dard gage track over Marshall pass-it
will not be until the narrow gage rolling
stock is completely worn out, it is now
almost pile of junk.
but competent railroad men have
declared time and again that Marshall
pass could be executed by the standard
gage cars easily. We remember well
hoe II or Is years ego il IVES declared
they could not run the compsHnd en-
gines on the marrow gage trock over
Msrshsll psss, these engines being the
same - were used on the standard gaee
in body, slthough mounted On narrow
gage trucks. They did the work all
right and now they are running - fer
west rs Montrose, 20 that fssAscy was
set aside.
I'VE of the district affected must do
everything within our power TO cause
the Rio Grsn6e management with the
millions it now has to improve the Colo
RADIO system, to see that the road is
standardized from Montrose 10 Salida,
and we must not go to sleep on the job.
Keep hammering away.