The R.G.S. Story, Vol. 6: Rico to Dolores

This beautiful book, illustrated throughout with black and white photos, follows the RGS as it struggled to stay afloat during the Great Depression. Details the use of small, hand-me-down locomotives which became the famous "Galloping Goose" between Ridgway and Durango, the ominipresent menace of floods and rockslides, fire and blizzard, as well as life in the mines that supported the railroad. This superb mile-by-mile photographic study takes you through the last years of the RGS in Rico down past the tumbling Dolores River. The book also covers the A. A. Rust logging railroad, newspaper articles that flesh out the struggles with derailments and floods, and the efforts of Elizabeth (Betty) Pellet to persuade the federal government to keep the RGS operating during World War II. With maps, line drawings (by Mike Blazek), gradient profiles, etc. 480 pages.