Published in the July 2011 issue of The Telegrapher, the newsletter of the Front Range Division

Bringing the Emma Sweeney home

By George Niederauer It was a busy week. On Friday, Oct 28, I got the call from the trucker that he would be in Jackson late Tue. I packed up tools, hitched my trailer and left Sat noon, arriving Jackson, CA, late Sunday afternoon. Rod Jensen came over from Ben Lomond, CA, Monday morning. After two full days of work Emma was ready for loading. The truck arrived Wed morning and was loaded and on the road by mid afternoon. We arrived in Durango and unloaded Emma at Santa Rita Park. Good thing. It snowed all the next day.

First on way the tender, with the rear truck up on the front, static part of the trailer.

Then went the engine. With its axles fixed to the frame, only the front most and rear most wheels were taking all the weight.

On both the track and the trailer, our big come-along was used to pull the tender and engine sideways to keep the wheels on the track and centered on the trailer.

The steep ramp into the parking lot caused the trailer to jerk in going out, shaking the cab so hard we almost lost

it right there. At first we were just going to brace it, but upon closer inspection, we discovered that the floor of the cab and the support of the firebox on the frame were badly rotten, no longer structurally sound. So we removed the cab piece by piece and put all in the tender tank. The cab jerk also ripped the front wall away from several pipes, so they too were removed and put in the tender.

Truck backing up to the pavilion in Santa Rita Park.

Engine almost on the track. Jim Granflaten pulls engine with series of chains, while George relays commands from a trucker, and volunteers try to push engine to center of track (it actually worked sometimes while the engine was rolling).

A slight angle requires pulling engine back in line with the track – more than once.

Emma Sweeney is on the track. We placed the pilot, which was transported in the front of the tender, on the track against the pilot beam.

And, it was a good thing we accomplished the move on Friday – park in snow the next day!