This little three foot gauge 2-8-0 at the Colorado Railroad Museum has a long and varied history. As the Denver, South Park and Pacific learned that their Mason Bogie locomotives were too light on their feet to pull the South Park’s trains on the sharp curves and heavy grades that defined the road. In 1880, Baldwin delivered eight 2-8-0’s to the South Park for freight service, including this one, which was originally numbered 51.
Five years later, the UP-controlled DSP&P renumbered their locomotives into the UP’s numbering scheme, and the little Consolidation became DSP&P 191. A corporate reorganization resulted in the 191 being relettered for the Denver, Leadville & Gunnison Railroad until the DL&G became part of the Colorado & Southern Railway a decade later. Rostered as C&S 31, it was never physically renumbered, and was sold in 1902.
The 2-8-0 left a career in the mountains to become a Wisconsin logging boomer, initially becoming Washburn & Northwestern Railroad number 7. When that company failed in 1905, the locomotive went to the Robbins Lumber Company and successor Thunder Lake Lumber Company in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. After 52 years of operation, the Consolidation was retired and placed on display at the Rhinelander Logging Museum in 1932.
Cornelius Hauck tracked down the South Park engine in the early 1970’s, and also found an original Thunder Lake Lumber 2-8-0 in Mexico. A swap was brokered, and 191 returned west, becoming the oldest locomotive in Colorado. The diminutive Consolidation received a cosmetic overhaul on 2009, and now appears as DL&G 191.
