by James Burke

On August 19, 1949 Galloping Goose Five sat at the Filling Station at the roundhouse at Ridgway, Colo.

She had just come down from Telluride—tired and thirsty. She had survived sixteen years of San Juan challenges and her story was nearly written.

The Rio Grande Southern Railroad was built in 1890-91 to tie the booming bonanzas at Telluride and Rico to the world through railroad connections at Ridgway and Durango.

It knew only one year of its intended glory—1892. In that year, multiple passenger trains daily traversed its tortuous 162 miles, transporting prestigious passengers in Pullman plush to and from Pueblo and Denver and more distant points through an even more dense traffic of ore trains.

The Silver Panic of 1893 destroyed most of the railroad’s reason to exist. Had the panic occurred three years earlier, The Rio Grand Southern would not have been built. But it was built—and stood as a monument to man’s ingenuity for another sixty years—partly due to the Galloping Goose.

After the Panic of 1893, there was recovery—to be sure, assisted by the new magic called “Electricity,” which allowed mines to pursue more elusive ores such as gold and less glittering elements.

But the Rio Grande Southern had, during the disruptions, become a corporate stepchild of The Rio Grande—a relationship it would suffer through the rest of its life. Its equipment came to be hand-me-down derelicts, and while corporate accounts showed RGS deficits, The Rio Grande profited from the long haul of the traffic.

The first twenty years of the 20th Century, the little road operated under such distortion with brave old Iron Horses and braver men.

In the 1920s the automobile was stealing passengers away even on the primitive roads of the San Juan Mountains. Many days there was not much on the trains but the mail. But the mail represented very lucrative revenue and so the boat floated until “The Great Depression.”

With the downturn of all activities and virtual absences of passengers, it was clear that other cost cutting action was required. The mail contracts were critical—but required strict  schedules—not compatible with irregular ore train operations. A steam powered mail train, even absent of passengers, still required a crew of five—an unbearable cost. Prospects for Rio Grande Southern survival into the thirties were not promising.

The Miracle was born in the Ridgway roundhouse in 1931. Conceived and delivered by such grass roots genius as then dwelled in remote outposts like Ridgway, a 1924 Buick was converted into a railbus capable of carrying the mail and a couple of passengers and operated over the road by one man— “The Motorman.”

The concept was proven so conclusively by “Motor One”—the first —that construction of Number Two was started immediately. Motor Two was more than twice the size of Motor One with corresponding mail and passenger-carrying capacity. Before her road tests were completed. Motor Three was taking shape in the Ridgway shops and again was a substantial enlargement on the concept.

But the trackside public had coined a new name for them. In view of their galloping gait over the uneven rails and honking at every obstruction, they were called “Galloping Geese.”

Between 1931 and 1936 seven Geese were born in Ridgway. Steam-powered mail passenger trains were eliminated at a great and critical saving to The Rio Grande Southern. Consequently, the railroad survived The Great Depression and lived to play a vital Uranium carrying role in World War II. This may not have been “Ridgway’s First Filling Station,” but in terms of being a salvation for the town, it was definitely Number One.

©2004-2006 James Burke

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.

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