Setting The Scene

A facsimile of the 1890 Tin Cup plat. The small Tincup & Western passenger depot will be located on the west side of Grande Avenue, between Washington Avenue and Water Street. The railroad's track will run down the left side of Grande Avenue. The location of the passenger depot and the route through Tin Cup are the same as proposed by the D&RG in its 1883 survey.

As we stated in our Welcome Page, The Tincup & Western Railroad is a fictional N-scale model railroad that borrows from history, but incorporates fiction. That said, it is only fair to explain. The town of Tin Cup, Colorado actually exists. It doesn't quite qualify as a ghost town, as there are aparently a few year-round residents and many of the original structures still stand - some have been restored, and many of those are privately owned. There are also a number of properties where newly constructed vacation homes (large log cabins) have been built by summer residents. The gold and silver mines actually existed, and their contribution to the region's wealth is well documented. In researching the area, we found that Tin Cup was never serviced by any of the many railroads that served Colorado's mining communities, despite efforts by the local populace to gain rail service. In fact, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad conducted a survey in 1883 to study a possible narrow gauge route from Gunnison to Taylor Park and Tin Cup through Almont and up Taylor Canyon. But no rail service was ever extended. We also found in our research that a second survey had been undertaken by the Taylor Park Railway Company in 1902 to determine the feasibility of extending rail service from the Colorado & Southern main line between the Alpine Tunnel and Pitkin to Aspen, via a tunnel through Tin Cup Pass, Tin Cup and Taylor Park. A spur was planned to provide direct rail service to the mills and major mines in the Tin Cup Mining District. Construction on a tunnel through Tin Cup Pass was actually begun, but was abandoned when the effort failed to sustain momentum. Instead, raw ore and concentrates continued to be hauled by mule-drawn freight wagons the 10 miles over Cumberland Pass to the Colorado & Southern rail head at Quartz, or the 14 miles over Tin Cup Pass to the Colorado & Southern rail head at St. Elmo.

As day breaks on a crisp September morning, the headlight of Consolidation No. 23 brightens the way as the locomotive slowly begins its trek to Gunnison at the coaling and water towers. The locomotive will back down the main line to Tin Cup, where it will pick up two passenger cars, then return to the Hillerton Yard access switch to pick up the remainder of its train. The small 0-4-0 switchers assemble the trains (less the coaches) and position them at the switch.

Based on the two surveys mentioned above, we decided to work on the theory that railroad service to the Tin Cup area had been completed, and that the service also included direct service to the mines and mills south of town.

Before we get too far into this, you might be confused about the two different spellings of Tin Cup/Tincup. The fact of the matter is that there once were two official, but different, spellings. The town was incorporated as Virginia City in 1880, and was patented as such. But the U.S. Post Office feared that the town would be confused with towns in Nevada and Montana that bore the same name, and that problems with mail delivery to all three towns might arise. In 1882, citizens voted on a name change, incorporated the town as Tin Cup (two words), and submitted a new (and revised) plat reflecting the new name. Things were fine until 1895 when, for unknown reasons, the U.S. Post Office changed the official postal address to "Tincup" (one word), even though both the town and the state officially recognized the spelling as Tin Cup. And, true to form, the federal bureaucracy took until 1918 to correct the problem. Why might this create a problem for a small locally run railroad? In those days railroads operated under a federal charter, thus it was theoretically easier to employ the federal government's version of things (even if it was wrong) than to fight them in Congress (the body that authorized the charters). Therefore, our mythical owner, Albert James Coupeau, opted to use the one-word spelling of "Tincup" on his railroad.

Incorporating What Really Exists

On a bright May morning in 1909, Tincup & Western Consolidation No. 23 lugs a combination car and a coach north along Willow Creek. The remaining cars, including a box car, four 30-foot gondolas filled with 72 tons of gold and silver concentrates from the Gold Cup Mill, the West Gold Hill Mill and the Brunswick Mill, and a bobber caboose, await the arrival of No. 23 at the switch which controls access to the Hillerton Yard.

If we examine the route surveyed by the D&RG in 1883 (and traveled by the Tincup & Western, we find that the terrain would have been relatively easy to navigate by rail. Virtually the entire distance between Gunnison and Tin Cup consists of grades of approximately 2%, with only a very few stretches exceeding that. In theory, it might have seem a little easier to extend a spur from the DSP&P/C&S railhead at Quartz or Pitkin either over Cumberland Pass or through Tin Cup Pass (the apparent premise for the Taylor Park Railway Company's 1902 effort). But the Cumberland Pass road (moving south from Tin Cup) would not have been friendly to rail traffic after reaching the Brunswick Mill. In fact, there appears to have been no through road along the current Cumberland Pass Road., Traffic between Tin Cup and Cumberland Pass traveled by way of the old stage road across the summit of West Gold Hill. The existing road to Cumberland pass was apparently a Civilain Conservation Corps project during the 1930's, and did not exist until that time. In addition, the steep grade and numerous switch backs between the summit of Cumberland Pass and Quartz have proven incapable of supporting rail traffic. Likewise, the proposed Taylor Park Railway Company route through Tin Cup Pass may well have been been abandoned for similar reasons, but in reality were probably also adversely effected by a combination of weather, depressed silver prices, and lack of fiscal support. For that reason, the 1883 D&RG survey proved to be the most realistic in terms of providing rail service to Tin Cup.

There were several very active claims on Gold Hill and up Tin Cup Gulch (including the Gold Cup Mine, the largest producer of gold among all the mines in the Tin Cup Mining District), but it was West Gold Hill that drew our attention because of its relative ease of access and visibility.

This small building was seen at the base of the hill directly opposite the remains of the West Gold Hill Mill. It is believed to have been the pump house for the mill. Local beliefs, however, suggest that it was used to store explosives for use in the mines associated with the West Gold Hill Mill. It sits in a meadow along the bed of West Willow Creek about three miles south of Tin Cup. (September, 1999)

Driving south, toward Cumberland Pass along West Willow Creek, one can see an ore bin and a combination ore bin/tram house near the summit of West Gold Hill. Our research strongly suggests that the buildings are on one of two claims that were linked to the West Gold Hill Mill by an aerial bucket tram - either the Iron Bonnet or the Carbonate King. A little farther along this road, and immediately off to the west, one encounters the remains of a small wooden building erected in the meadow beside West Willow Creek. Directly opposite this building, on the east side of the road, lies the remnants of what had once been the West Gold Hill Mill. This was one of the first cyanide mills in Colorado, and was erected in 1904 to process the ores extracted from the Iron Bonnet and Carbonate King lodes previously mentioned, and from the Golden Treasure Mine, which sits almost 1,000 feet behind and some 500 feet above the mill. Like the Iron Bonnet and the Carbonate King, the Golden Treasure was connected to the West Gold Hill Mill by an aerial bucket tram. The mill only operated for about a year (the spring of 1905 until the spring of 1906), when operations were abandoned. We have been unable to find any photos of the mill, nor were we able to find any official documentation concerning its operation. We suspect that the small building across the road was the pump house, and that the creek served as the source of water needed by the mill. But the folks in Tin Cup are under the impression that it was used to store explosives used in the mines associated with the West Gold Hill Mill.

A map showing the locations of the five mines and two mills prominant on West Gold Hill. The Iron Bonnet, Carbonate King and Golden Treasure were connected by bucket trams to the West Gold Hill Mill. The tram towers and the cable strung between the Golden Treasure and the mill are still in place, as are the ore bins, an upper tram house and the cable which lead to the iron Bonnet and Carbonate King lodes. The Jimmy Mack and the Blistered Horn were connected to the Brunswick Mill by bucket tram and inclined railway, respectively.

A mile south of the West Gold Hill Mill lies the remains of the Brunswick Mill. It was owned by the Brunswick Mining & Milling Company of Brunswick, New Jersey, and was placed in operation in 1889. When it began operations, the Brunswick supported the Jimmy Mack Mine (about 1,800 feet behind and 1,000 feet above the mill), and appears to have remained in operation until about 1914. It was a large choride mill which consisted of the main structure and at least seven out buildings, and could process up to 100 tons of raw ore a day.

The claim for the Jimmy Mack Mine was surveyed in 1881, and became the Tin Cup Mining District's largest producer of silver ore. We are still researching the mine's activities, but believe that it remained in operation until a little after 1908. The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 led to a severe recession in virtually all mining areas of Colorado. But, while the recession obviously effected silver mining operations in Tin Cup, the Jimmy Mack apparently continued operations largely uninterrupted. In 1902, while working at about the 900 foot level, a large seam of silver ore was discovered in the Jimmy Mack. This event led to a second boom in the little town and resulted in renewed interest in mining. The Brunswick Mining & Milling Company decided, shortly after the new discovery, that a tunnel should be driven into West Gold Hill in an effort to both dewater the Jimmy Mack and to assist in the removal of the newly discovered silver ore. A site was selected about 275 feet behind and about 120 feet above the mill, and the Blistered Horn tunnel was begun. After tunneling about 125 feet into the side of West Gold Hill, a 2-foot seam of silver was discovered. And, after tunneling a further 120 feet into the hill, still another seam of silver was found - this one of 12 feet. The result was two very large silver producers operated by the same company, and whose ore was processed at the Brunswick Mill. Research of the Colorado State Archives mine reports indicates that the Blistered Horn was still in operation in 1914, but it is unclear how much silver was extracted or shipped. The mine reports do state that mining operations were being done manually by a relatively small crew during a single eight hour work shift each day, suggesting that it's life was nearly complete.

Our research indicates that, to lend some modicum of reality to the layout, we should base the premise for the Tincup & Western on the original 1883 D&RG survey route, which ran directly from Almont to Tin Cup, and the 1902 survey by the Taylor Park Railway Company, which would have resulted in the installation of a spur back to the mills and major mines south of town. We also decided that, because of space considerations, we should limit the mine and mill population to those found on the West Willow Creek side of West Gold Hill, as depicted in the map above. But we will retain at least the theoretical access to mining activies on the east side of Gold Hill by installing a turnout west of town which will have track installed to represent the railroad's efforts to transport ore from the Gold Cup.

The Plan

The yet-to-be-marked Tincup & Western Consolidation #23 resting on the scratch-built turntable controlling access to the engine house and work sheds.

In keeping with situations in other parts of the state, we decided to take advantage of the fact that the original roads to and from the mines south of town, particularly the Gold Cup, Blistered Horn and Jimmie Mack (the three wealthiest mines in the Tin Cup Mining District, and three of the richest in the state) were still in existence, and that the mills could still be reached. The difference in altitude from Tin Cup to the mill sites on Gold Hill and West Gold Hill ranges between 200 and 600 feet, and could easily have been reached by rail. And since our goal is to reflect things as they might have been around 1910, we installed a small marshaling yard and a two-bay engine house (complete with lean-to work sheds on either side) at the former town site of Hillerton since, by 1880, it had been abandoned. To reach the mills by rail, a spur line will run from just north of Tin Cup to an area about two miles south and west of town where a turn out will permit access to the Gold Cup and Brunswick mills. The spur will be located very near Willow Creek.

In choosing our stable of locomotives, we had originally planned on incorporating four 2-8-0 Consolidations and four 2-8-2 Mikados which had been "purchased from the Santa Fe and the Union Pacific railroads" in 1908. And we were going to employ four 2-6-2 Prairie locomotives that had been "acquired in 1903" to replace the original four 4-4-0 Americans leased in 1893. For yard work and shuttling operations, we chose four 0-4-0 switchers. All of the locomotives we puchased were Bachmanns. We repainted and marked each one, then set about beginning construction of the layout. At that point we encountered two problems which simply could not be overcome. The most important was that the era we were building was the very early 20th Century (pre-1912), and the larger Bachmanns were based on 1910-1915 designs. We also found that, when we reached a point on the layout where we could lay temporary track and test our connections, none of the Mikados, Consolidations or Prairies could negotiate the modest 2% grade without wheel slip when pulling any kind of a load. In looking at what options we had, knowing that using the N-scale Bachmann Americans would result in a more severe case of the same problem, we began searching for period steamers that might work instead. Pickings in N-scale were slim (nonexistant), to say the least. Fortunately, MDC Roundhouse has released an excellent 1889 Baldwin Consolidation based on a Northern Pacific design, but very similar to the familiar Consolidations employed so successfully by the Denver & Rio Grande in their narrow gauge hey-day. After considerable deliberation (and nearly a year after ordering two) we took delivery of two Roundhouse Conslidations. In every respect, they have answered all our questions with very quiet and reliable performance, plus the ability to tackle the 2% grades (complete with loads) without significant problems. We have decided to keep the switchers since they seem to do a better job with the 2% grade pulling a couple of gondolas. Thus, our locomotive population will consist of the two Roundhouse Consolidations and the four Bachmann switchers - more in keeping with what might be found on a small branch operation. The other Bachmanns have been retired, but can be used on other endeavors.

Given our space limitations, this in an approximation of what our finished layout will look like in an overhead view. Only the west side of West Gold Hill will be replicated. At this point, however, we've only worked on the three modules on the left of the diagram, the top of which represents a view to the east. The single "structure" on the diagram, and annotated by the words "Tin Cup," is the location of the Tin Cup passenger depot.

Model railroaders are constantly faced with a rather debilitating factor in designing, and actually building a layout - space. And we are no different. It was realized going into the project that we wouldn't be able to make full use of the small 1:160 (N gauge) scale, even for the relatively restricted area occupied by the fictional Tincup & Western. Using some dimensions that we thought might allow us to at least characterize the entire 43 miles of roadbed, we came up with a layout (on paper) that was about 12' X 36'. It would have been fun to build the entire route from West Gold Hill to Gunnison (through Tin Cup, Taylor Park, Taylor Canyon and Almont, but we would have obviously needed much more space than we have available. Our alternative is to model just the link between Taylor Park and Tin Cup (to include the spur leading to the West Gold Hill and Brunswick mill sites. We have dealt with the line to Gunnison by permitting the visible line to extend into a tunnel in Park Cone (an actual 12,000 foot mountain above Taylor Park) and employing a reversing loop which would permit the return to Hillerton and Tin Cup without manual intervention. We have wired that segment to be DCC controlled. We've got all of this on paper, but are finding it necessary to modify things as we go. Restraining ourselves somewhat, our intent is to concentrate on a layout of 6' X 16'. We are still working out the math, but we may have encountered still another space-related problem which may cause us to lengthen the layout to 18 feet. We have nearly completed the first three modules (from Park Cone to just below Hillerton), and are in the preparatory stages of beginning the benchwork for the fourth module. However, in laying things out on paper, we've found that the physical size of Tin Cup (should we choose to replicate the town in its entirety) will require nearly three complete modules (instead of the planned one and half). And to provide the depth necessary (again, assuming we replicate the entire town), we'll need nearly five feet. This means that the fourth and fifth modules will have to be the same size as the first two and last three - that is, 2' X 6'. The problem now is determining if there is enough depth to the garage to permit the additional module that will be required and still allow access the garage from the patio.

What's Been Done

This is a recent digital photo showing a panoramic view (looking west) of what we've been able to accomplish to this point. These three modules represent the northernmost extremes of the layout. The module at the right represents the plain just east of Taylor Park, and contains the lower northern extremities of Park Cone, Taylor River (not visible in upper right background) and Willow Creek (just visible in the upper right). The second module contains our representation of Hillerton, including the Hillerton Yard (nearest camera) and Park Cone, itself. The module at left is primamrily the "empty" transition into Tin Cup, the northern extremes of which will be near the left edge of the fourth module.

The Tincup & Western Railroad is a project that has been underway for a little over three years. Although we don't have much track down yet, we haven't been idle. As stated, we have under construction three modules which will represent the northern end of the layout, to include Park Cone, the reversing loop, the track to the Hillerton Yard, the Hillerton Yard itself, a scratch built turn table, a two stall engine house (complete with two lean-to add on structures for light work on rolling stock), a freight depot, two sidings for rolling stock storage, a turnout controlling access to Tin Cup and Gold Hill/West Gold Hill, and the beginnings of the track bed extending into the fourth module.

We've experimented with various decal options through which to mark our locomotives and rolling stock, but have largely met with frustration in our ability to do things by ourselves. We have a Lexmark Z42 color ink jet printer which does a great job of duplicating things on paper, but we haven't been able to overcome the problem of the inks running when the decals are placed in water, even when they've dried and been sealed. We also have an NEC SuperScript 860 laser printer which does an excellent job of reproducing black and white images on paper, but it has been less than successful thus far at transferring the artwork to decal paper. We are currently exploring the possibility of taking our efforts to a local jobber who says he can duplicate the artwork on commercial printers if we provide the decal paper and do the setup work ourselves. Stay tuned.