History*

The Chimera Gorge Western RR Co. was established in 1877 by ‘Dutch’ Willie Roosewather, a colonist from the Netherlands and owner of a small silver mine in the town of Chimera, Southwest Colorado. This was in the days when the ATSF and Rio Grande were entangled in a railroad war over the Royal Gorge, gateway to the rich mining fields at Leadville, Colorado. Roosewather used the opportunity to construct his road from Chimera to Montrose. From Montrose, a line was planned via Grand Junction to Leadville to beat both the Santa Fe and Rio Grande to it.

Also, from Chimera a line would go to the West Coast. However, all this was never meant to be because Old Roosewather choked in a bone whilst eating a mountain goat. This was the beginning of some meager years for the CGW, for the once rich silver veins at Chimera dried up soon after and Roosewather’s incompetent successors almost bankrupted the company.

On top of all that, they found the town of Chimera to be in the middle of the newly founded Mesa Verde National Park one bad morning in 1906. CGW’s new boss, Ebenezer Schmiertze, offered one senator McKenna a substantial bribe in exchange for a revision of the law, allowing the CGW to continue using their Eastern Division from Chimera to Hesperus via Sewer City. Northbound traffic (Mesa Verde/Dolores/Montrose), however, is limited to one train a day in each direction, so as not to drive all tourists away. On the Southbound mainline the CGW may operate a Gas Electric service only (to pick up the Utes from the reservation). These were no great sacrifices because the Northern division hadn’t been bringing in much revenue anyway: the stretch between Montrose and Grand Junction was lost to the Rio Grande in 1896, thus making the connection to Leadville impossible. The only revenue comes from a single gold mine on top of the Uncompahgre Plateau and a few loads of Uranium from Uravan and Nucla, which are carried to Mesa Verde’s interchange track.

The -double track!- Southbound main was constructed in 1883 by Colonel Versenwald II, known as ‘El Moron’, to connect the CGW with the Santa Fe at Farmington, New Mexico. Almost the minute he crossed the State boundary, a bounty hunter arrested him and handed him over to the local authorities (Versenwald was wanted for murder in New Mexico). Today the Ghost town of El Moron remains a silent witness of this goof. In it’s glory days this railroad boomtown featured five saloons, four whorehouses, one barbershop, three gunsmith’s and a drugstore. Versenwald was never replaced and the railroad town was soon abandoned, because everlasting attacks from hostile Ute tribes drove away most of the laborers (lady’s first).

Thus, in 1906 the CGW was left with only one profitable division, the Eastern division between Chimera and Hesperus. Originally, this stretch was built to connect to the Rio Grande at Hesperus, but after the D&RGW took control of the RGS, Hesperus downgraded to merely a division point. Also, the D&RGW had not forgotten Old Roosewather’s attempt to con them during the railroad wars with the Santa Fe and so they refused the CGW any interchange.

Fortunately, Sewer City sat on top of what is believed to be the biggest accumulation of sulphur in Colorado, hence the name of the town. This sulphur was (and is) shipped worldwide and the mines are company owned. One of CGW’s best customers is a French cosmetic industry that uses the sulphur in their #5 perfume. As a matter of fact, if it wasn’t for these scents, the CGW wouldn’t have survived the great depression.

During WWII, the prices of silver went sky-high and the silver mine at Chimera was reopened. The Red Star Mining Company has since been good for 15 carloads of silver ore a day. Another valuable product during the war was rubber. Sulphur is needed to vulcanize rubber, so the CGW bought raw material to make synthetic rubber in a plant in Chimera, using their own sulphur (the Japs had requisitioned all natural rubber plantations in Asia). It seemed like a patriotic thing to do and since there was no way to compete with the automobile that was conquering America at that time, management figured that if you can’t beat them, you should join them. Instead of selling the rubber as a raw material, they built a tire factory, for labor is very cheap in the area: they employ local Ute Indians from the reservation and pay them in kind with firewater (which is really B-grade perfume from France). The tire factory was but the first of many rubber processing plants, making all kinds of rubber objects for the GI’s abroad(!). The revenues of the rubber and silver were used to dieselize in the post war years.

Today, another important product is added to CGW’s rubber line. It is a brand new material called RTV-rubber and it is sold to other RR companies. This rubber is shipped in drums in boxcars, because the fact that there is no solvent for this stuff makes it impossible to clean tank cars that carried it. CGW-management has no idea what those railroads want the RTV for, but who cares as long as they pay top dollar for it! And last but not least the Utex Company markets a very popular brand of inflatable mountains, a real hit in modular railroading. A major account is the famous N Scale Unltd. Group, a conglomerate of several N Scale railroads.

Lacking a railroad interchange at the Eastern division point, the sulphur ore, silver and rubber are shipped by rail to Hesperus, where it is transferred to trucks. The company is always looking for a bridge route that will enable them to ship their goodies by rail all the way to the East coast via a major carrier. Westbound traffics uses the MVRT RR They have considered reopening their double track mainline (the tracks are still there) and extending it to Farmington as originally planned. Since the first few miles inside the Mesa Verde National Park are taboo, a loop would have to be constructed around it to reach the line to Hesperus.

Chief Dead Frog, son of the famous Ute Chief White Feather, however, has successfully started a lobby in Washington to stop the railroad from violating the Treaty that says: ‘Southern Montezuma shall belong to the Red Man for all eternity’ (small print: ‘or until Paleface discovers valuable minerals in the area’). Unfortunately for the CGW, unlike his illustrious father, Dead Frog is on the water wagon and cannot be sweet talked into signing a new treaty over a bottle of cheap whiskey. The company lawyers are working on this. Pending a solution, the CGW will have to live with the uncertainties that go with having truckers as their link to the rest of the world.

Chief Dead Frog is very unpopular at the CGW HQ. Not only does he lobby against a Southbound mainline, he also happens to be the General Manager of the Chimera City Bus Company (also known as Leap Frog Bus Company). This company offers a very competitive transport service between Chimera and Hesperus as well as several other towns. They are notorious for their aggressive advertising campaigns, with slogans like: ‘Where would I be if it wasn’t for the CGW?’ (answer: ‘already home, for instance!’ Other capacities of Dead Frog are that he’s Chief of all Utes, chairman of the Transportation Committee of the Indian Council and best dressed Indian of the Year. Secretly and un-admittedly he also appears to be a major factor behind the PLO -the Paleface Liquidation Organization. The Chief is not only unpopular at the CGW HQs: the Benefactor of Pabravia, a South American Island Republic, has put a price on his head!

At this moment, the railroads listed below can be regarded as friendly, although some are more friendly than others... These are (at random)

• The Mesa Verde, Rimrock & Tidewater Railroad, by the late Bill Merrill of State College, Pennsylvania, USA
• The Keystone Central Railroad, owned & operated by The Starmans Bros., of Soest, The Netherlands
• The Bolstown & Oilsmell Ry., owned & operated by Alfons Bossaers, Lichtenvoorde, The Netherlands
• Eastern Countship Rail Lines, owned & operated by Alfons Bossaers, Lichtenvoorde, The Netherlands
• Woodshole & Northfield RR, owned & operated by Alfons Bossaers, Lichtenvoorde, The Netherlands
• Hobbiton & Middle Earth , owned & operated by Hans van den Bosch, Sassenheim, The Netherlands
• Cheyenne Springs & Western Ry., owned & operated by Patrick Lenahan, Manhattan, Kansas
• Ferrocarrilles de Pabravia SA , owned & operated by Ruud Bergsvoort, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• NY & NE RR Corp., owned & operated by Marc Immeker, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• Santa Rica Corridor Lines , owned & operated byCindy & Stephen Priest, Manhattan, Kansas, USA
• FC de Tascosa y Calico, owned & operated by John & Katie Olson, Pasadena, California
• Jerome & Southwestern RR Mescal Lines RR, owned & operated by John & Katie Olson, Pasadena, California, USA
• Royal Oak & Southern RR, owned & operated by Stanley R. Knotts, Laytonsville, Maryland, USA
• The Fitchburg & Southbridge, owned & operated by Mike Tylick, Sturbridge, Massachussets, USA
• Westport Terminal RR, owned & operated by Wolfgang Dudler, Germany
• Pittsfield & Joevalley RR, owned & operated by Peter Helmich
• Metusa Junction, owned & operated by Ronald Halma

The CGW owes a lot to some of these railroads. For example, the MVR&T actually did some on site surveying for the CGW during the formative years when Old Roosewather was still putting in some tracks. It also provided a lot of strategic information on various subjects. The Keystone Central management was always willing to do some major nitpicking from an operational/mechanical viewpoint. Those nits were picked back when reviewing their scenery and they were given orders to correct mechanical failures of the CGW. This resulted in improved engines for the CGW. One of the engines was competely rebuilt. The Royal Oak & Southern has been important in the field of logistics and information.

Literature
*The life and times of William D. Roosewather; a man and his principles/ Rev. Donald Peabrein, Chilten Press, Denver, 1923
*The road to nowhere/Edsel Versenwald III, Inferior Railroad Books, Farmington, 1903
*Rubber Giant in the Rockies/MRA, Chicago, 1949
*Thunder on the Mesas/Don Bull Jr., Green Mountain Publ. Co., Montrose, 1951
*History of the CGW RR/Montezuma Historical Society, Cortez, 1954
*How to kill an iron horse in one easy lesson/Chief Dead Frog, Indian Rights Movement, Palm Beach, 1955

 

* This entire story was made up one evening many years ago while answering a letter from Bill Merrill in which he mentioned a company history for his MVRT railroad. So don't believe a word of it!