The TINCUP & WESTERN Railroad is a fictional N-Scale model railroad. The little gold and silver mining town of Tin Cup, Colorado, really does exist. But, despite efforts by its residents, and two different surveys (the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in 1883 and the Taylor Park Railroad Company in 1902), it was never serviced by any of the many railroads that operated in the Colorado Rockies. In creating the TINCUP & WESTERN, we tried to blend together some of the rich history of the region with a "what if" mentality. "What if the two surveys had actually resulted in railroad service being extended to the area?" In that vein, we've researched the town and some of the mines and mills in the Tin Cup area, acquired copies of the mineral surveys, patents and plats, and attempted to determine what they looked like when they were in operation shortly after the 20th century began. Not all the research has been as successful as we would have liked, but characterizing the town of Tin Cup and it's surrounding gold and silver mining history has been a most enjoyable project.

While completing a second phase of research into Tin Cup and its rich history, we came upon an idea to incorporate "extracts" from a fictional diary written by Minnie Coupeau, the fictional daughter of the Tincup & Western's owner, Albert James Coupeau, over several years. To see what a young girl growing up in turn of the century Colorado might have written about her environment, click on the DIARY button.

We've made five trips to Tin Cup and its surrounding area in the past four years and have taken a number of photographs from which to base our efforts. We started construction on the layout over the winter of 2000/2001, and have scratch-built a number of N-scale buildings and structures to place on the layout. We have also included photographs of some of our efforts, along with photographs of the mines and mills where copyrights permit.

We hope you will relax for a few minutes and join us for a brief tour of our little railroad, central Colorado, and a bit of railroad and mining history that many of us find so fascinating. Any comments you may have concerning our efforts would be greatly appreciated. Please E-mail Paul Pierce of Waldorf, Maryland.

Thank you for visiting the Tincup & Western Railroad web site. We hope you'll bookmark our URL and come back for another visit to check on our progress.

ALL ABOARD!

 
 

Paul Pierce
Waldorf, Maryland
Email: pogybait1@comcast.net

Revised on: January 16, 2003
URL: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/pogybait1/welcome.htm