San Juan Silver Stage Online
RAILROADS TO SILVERLOADS

Vol. 14, 2009. Serving Colorado and the Four Corners since 1996

Ridgway Resurrection

Story and photograph by James Burke

Ridgway Roundhouse, 1949

The quiet stood with the cottonwoods
In a setting quite surreal.
There was not a man. There was not a dog.
There was silence carved in steel.

The last sad two of many who
Had shared these roundhouse stalls,
The Forty-one and Forty-two,
Stared coldly at the walls.

But ghosts of most of a century stood
In the shadows out of sight.
For them the empty tracks stood full
Of engines steaming white.

I broke the bonds that urge us on
And joined them in the past.
And, in this spell, I then beheld
The old Ridgway at last.

The empty stalls were not at all,
Turntable busy too.
And smoke and steam where I'd just seen

The sleeping Forty-two.

Yes, they were there — a herd I swear,
The Nine, The Twenty-five,
The Eighteen too, her paint brand new,
So proud to be alive.

She'd jumped the track a short whie back,
Way up on Ophir Loop.
And her friends here, had lived in fear,
They'd lost her from the group.

The Twenty-two was sure I knew
She'd come from Cripple Creek.
And, with her past, she'd be the last,
Of memories to speak.

Old number Twelve was back from hell.
She'd hit a slide at Browns.
Her frame was bent, and she'd be sent
To Alamosa Town.

But, she'd be back, with roaring stack
To whip that hill again.
You couldn't bluff thse Ridgway toughs
With just some busted skin.

The Twenty Spot, now stood there hot
And ready for a ride.
She'd take the finest on the line
To lofty Telluride.

I followed her from where we were
To see her shining train.
When I looked back, the roundhouse track
Had grown to weeds again.

And all the steam and smoke it seemed
Had vanished into space.
The Forty-one and Forty-two
Were sleeping in its place.

For time they say, will not delay
Nor aging of the wine.
And, Ridgway's essence was of age
In nineteen forty-nine.

James Burke, railroad historian and photographer is the associate publisher of the "San Juan Silver Stage." His railroad photographs and writings have appeared in a variety of publications throughout the United States.