The ghost siding of Barrel

Brief by Central Staff

Transportation - March 2008 - Colorado Central Magazine - No. 169 - Page 8
Copyright © 2008 by Central Colorado Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
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[Barrel dump in 1955, Robert R. Richardson Photo, Copyright held
by Denver Public Library Western History Department Call No.
RR-1770.]

This spot between Salida and Cleora is not exactly a "ghost town," since it never was a town. It was a siding named Barrel, where the railroad used a rotary dump to transfer limestone from the narrow-gauge cars that served the Monarch Quarry to the standard-gauge cars that served the CF&I steel mill in Pueblo. The machinery was erected in 1924, and was used until 1956 when the Monarch branch was converted to standard-gauge; the branch was abandoned in 1984.

[Barrel dump site in 2008]
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