It’s #ThrowbackThursday! Today, we are celebrating the 127th birthday of the Museum’s beloved Rio Grande Southern (RGS) locomotive No. 20.🎂🎉🚂
As documented in Colorado Rail Annual No. 13, No. 20 rolled out of the Schenectady Locomotive Works in April 1899, making this birthday even more precise! Built in 1899 by the Schenectady Locomotive Works, this storied locomotive began its service life on the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad (F&CC), where it went by the nickname “Portland.” No. 20 served as a workhorse on the F&CC until the railroad was washed out by floods and abandoned in 1912. In 1916, the RGS purchased the locomotive for use along its mountain route from Durango to Ridgway, where it operated until the RGS shut down in 1951.
No. 20 even had a moment of stardom, appearing as Emma Sweeney in the 1950 film A Ticket to Tomahawk, filmed right along the Animas River Route on what is now the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
After the RGS closed, the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club purchased No. 20 to save it from being scrapped. It spent several years on display at Robert Richardson’s Narrow-Gauge Motel in Alamosa before being relocated to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden when it opened in 1959. The Club formally donated No. 20 to the Museum in 2006, kicking off a 14-year, $1.5 million restoration completed in 2020.
Today, 127 years after it was built, No. 20 has returned to service and pulls trains throughout the year for thousands of visitors, both on and off Museum grounds. The Museum was honored to send this historic locomotive to Durango this past winter to pull passenger trains along the very line it originally served. As we celebrate this milestone, we look to the future and are excited to continue preserving and sharing important histories like this one.
