Emma Sweeney
The famous movie locomotive from the 1950 Western A Ticket to Tomahawk — featuring a young Marilyn Monroe — later transformed into the Hooterville Cannonball for TV’s Petticoat Junction. After decades in California, DRHS acquired and fully restored this one-of-a-kind piece of Hollywood and railroad history, now on display in Santa Rita Park, Durango.
Rolling Stock
DRHS owns and maintains a remarkable collection of D&RGW narrow gauge freight cars, each restored to reflect its working history in southwest Colorado’s mountain railroads.
The Drop Bottom Gondola 871 and High Side Gondola 1400 represent the backbone of narrow gauge freight operations — open cars built to haul coal, ore, and bulk materials through some of the most demanding terrain in the country.
Our two Stock Cars, 5627 and 5564, tell a different story — one single deck for cattle and horses, one double deck for sheep and hogs — a reminder that the D&RGW served the ranching communities of Colorado just as much as its mines.
Perhaps the most personal pieces in the collection are the Box Outfit Cars 04351 and 04432. Converted from revenue boxcars into rolling bunk houses and tool stores, these were the cars that housed the crews who kept the railroad running — a rarely preserved window into the everyday working life of a narrow gauge railroad.
Structures
In partnership with the San Juan County Historical Society, DRHS has been working to restore and preserve the historic Silverton Northern railroad site in Silverton, Colorado. The Railroad Park brings together surviving structures, reconstructed track, and displayed equipment to recreate the atmosphere of a working narrow gauge yard — open to the public at any time.
The Silverton Northern Oil Shed is a faithful reconstruction of the original tin-covered shed that stood beside the SN Engine House from at least 1912. Used historically to store the flammable lubricants and chemicals needed to service steam locomotives, the rebuilt shed now serves as a workspace and gathering place for DRHS volunteers and visitors to the park.
The SN Track Reconstruction & Engine House Restoration was a major multi-year project funded in part by a State Historical Fund grant. Volunteers and D&S track crews rebuilt the Silverton Northern track along Cement Street, restored the historic engine house doors and pits, and returned the site to working railroad condition — including a rare surviving stub switch with a D&RGW cast iron harp stand.
The SN Track page documents the full history of the Silverton Northern Railroad itself — the narrow gauge branch that connected Silverton to the mining communities of the upper Animas Valley and played a vital role in the economic life of San Juan County for decades.
