page_title: Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
section_title: 490 series
hierarchical_section_title: Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad / D&SNG engines / Steam / 490 series
caption_attribution_description: English: 493 in the Durango yard on the May 4th, 2016 move from Silverton to Durango.
context_page_description: The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, often abbreviated as the D&SNG, is a 3 ft narrow-gauge heritage railroad that operates 45.2 miles of track between Durango and Silverton, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The railway is a federally designated National Historic Landmark and is also designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
  The route was originally opened in 1882 by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad to transport silver and gold ore mined from the San Juan Mountains. The line was an extension of the D&RG 3 ft narrow-gauge line from Antonito, Colorado to Durango. The last train to operate into Durango from the east was on December 6, 1968. The states of New Mexico and Colorado purchased 64 miles between Antonito and Chama, New Mexico in 1970 and operates today as the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. Trackage between Chama and Durango was removed by 1971.
  The line from Durango to Silverton has run continuously since 1881, although it is now a tourist and heritage line hauling passengers, and is one of the few places in the US which has seen continuous use of steam locomotives.
context_section_description: The 490 series or K-37 class locomotives were part of a class of thirty standard gauge class 190 (later, class C-41) 2-8-0 engines built in 1902 for the D&RG by Baldwin Locomotive Works. In 1928 and 1930 ten of the C-41s were rebuilt at the Rio Grande's Burnham Shops in Denver into 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge 2-8-2s. The D&SNG operated only one K-37. #497 was rebuilt in 1984 and operated for seven years. It is the only K-37 to go to Silverton under its own power. It was later determined that the trailing truck was having trouble negotiating the curves in the Animas Canyon. The D&SNG traded 497 to the C&TS for K-36 class #482. This trade was mutually beneficial for both railroads as it gave the C&TS a fully operational locomotive, giving in exchange a locomotive that had never run, and likely would never operate under C&TS ownership. Numbers 493 and 498 are owned by the D&SNG, but are not operational. On May 4, 2016, K-37 #493 was hauled to Durango from Silverton by K-36 #481 to be transported to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado, on a 10-year lease, where they would restore it to operational condition and run it for those 10 years and then return it to the D&SNGRR. However, plans were cancelled and #493 sat outside the Durango roundhouse with an uncertain future for sometime, until 2018 when she was put in the roundhouse for restoration. It is estimated it could take up to two years to finish the restoration. #493 is being restored to use oil vs. coal. This will allow it to operate when the coal fired engines cannot, since oil fired engines do not emit cinders. #493 ran under its own power for the first time on January 24, 2020. K-37 #498 rests in the Durango yard near the turntable without a tender and with no plans to restore it, given its deteriorated condition. #499 was included in the 1981 purchase from the D&RGW as well, and was stored in Durango until 1999 when it was cosmetically restored and traded for K-36 class #486, which had been on display and out of operation at Royal Gorge since the early 1960s.
caption: K-37 steam locomotive #493 in Durango after the May 4, 2016 move from Silverton to Durango.
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