Soggy Bottoms - a photo on Flickriver

Soggy Bottoms

            Now for a look back toward the other houses. Wasn't Soggy Bottoms the name of George Clooney's band? .OMG, lakes in spring. There is a small waterfall behind the center aspen tree now leafing out. No wonder that they bridged access to a couple of the houses. These are the worker's company houses in the meadow at the Moffat tunnel in the hills. In other words this is a shot of some housing that is shot. The work force that operated the station - agents, telegraphers, electricians, curtain operators and other maintenance workers for the East Portal of the Moffat Tunnel had short walks to work. All the housing up here is deteriorating. Could the standing puddles hurry that up? I wonder about the snow loads piled on roofs here. The Rockies and water at the divide took a toll on man-made structures. 

I bet the insulation, R factor, of the roof went way up when 2-3 feet of snow piled on, thus the springtime puddles. The D&RGW RR (Dangerous & Rapidly Growing Worse RR) provided housing for crews had to cut through deep snows to battle the short distances to work. Direct transportation was available to Rollinsville, Denver and the western slope towns for shopping. In the winter, refrigerators were supplied behind all of the cabins. I can imagine stumbling around in heavy snowfalls on the night shift. These homes are backed up to the south-facing side of the east-west Mammoth Valley. There loads of color on our second trip up to the Moffat. 

eDDie sneaked in the furthest left house and said a load of belongings were left in place, the T-Rump police ferreting out the 99ers probably. I walked around to the back door but my nose wouldn't let me go further. I poked around the house next door. I found some tasty wild raspberries in the attached shed behind the house hidden on the right. Good terroir (French) here. It's still possible to remain mostly dry inside if no sideways blizzards blow in and by avoiding the swamps. Of course, the Great Divide affords some degree of protection to big blows from the northwest that could fly overhead. The crew  would be ill advised to tip a few before heading home or back to work, especially at night! I wonder how soggy the meadows got in the past years. 

D&RGW operated the tunnel and big coal mines near Somerset and Paonia on the Western Slope even though it was D&SL RR (Denver &  Salt Lake RR) that inspired the tunnel after years of winter snow fighting campaigns over the Hill Division on the Continental Divide. Coal shipments will be taking a major hit if we want to come even close to global warming commitments, sans the idiota right. Denverites were always envious of Southern Wyoming and wanted their own transcontinental route to fuel its growth. D & SL RR operated the big standard gauge arrticulated Mallets over to the Western Slope and ran many trains over the divide. Find images of the station, Corona, on the Denver Public Library site, pretty astounding!

Taken on: June 3, 2017

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Soggy Bottoms

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