ATDDTA(10) Uncertainty Illuminated (Darkly) [281]

[Keith]

[281:1-11] “After passengers for Telluride had changed at Ridgway  
Junction, the little stub train climbed up over Dallas Divide and  
rolled down again to Placerville and the final haul up the valley of  
the San Miguel, through sunset and into the uncertainties of night.  
The high-country darkness, with little to break it but starlight off  
the flow of some creek or a fugitive lamp or hearth up in a miner’s  
cabin, soon gave way to an unholy radiance ahead, in the east. I was  
the wrong color for a fire, and daybreak was out of the question,  
though the end of the world remained a possibility. It was in fact  
the famous electric street-lighting of Telluride, first city in the  
U.S. to be so lit, and Frank recalled that his kid brother, Kit, had  
worked for a while on the project of bringing electricity for it up  
from Ilium Valley.”

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Ridgway, Colorado, is a town at the crossroads, both literally and  
figuratively. The junction of 550 and 62 is all that most travelers  
will ever know about Ridgway. It is the refueling stop at the  
northernmost point of the San Juan Skyway with the only stoplight in  
Ouray County. The intersection is halfway on the Durango-Grand  
Junction highway and serves as the terminus of the road to Telluride,  
Rico, Dolores and Cortez. Ridgway is one of those Corner Towns that  
everyone drives through but very few actually stop and get to know.
   http://tinyurl.com/2adbzc

Ridgway began as a railroad town, serving the nearby mining towns of  
Telluride and Ouray, pronounced yu-ray. The town site sits at the  
northern terminus of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad where it meets  
with Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad running between Montrose  
and Ouray. Ridgway was located about 3 miles (5 km) south of the  
existing town of Dallas. Articles of incorporation were filed on 22  
May 1890 and granted on 4 March 1891. Ridgway was named after Denver  
and Rio Grande Railroad superintendent Robert M. Ridgway.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridgway,_Colorado

Railroad Station: http://tinyurl.com/3bct83

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A "stub train" is a short train with a cafe car and a couple of coaches.

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Dallas Divide (el. 2734 m./8970 ft.) is a high mountain pass in the  
United States state of Colorado located on Colorado State Highway 62  
about 12 miles (19 km) west of the town of Ridgway.

The pass is a saddle between the San Juan Mountains to the south and  
the Uncompahgre Plateau to the north and divides the Uncompahgre  
River watershed from the San Miguel River watershed and Ouray County  
from San Miguel County. The pass takes its name from Dallas Creek  
which drains the basin on the north side of Mount Sneffels into the  
Uncompahgre River. A toll road was first constructed over Dallas  
Divide in 1880 linking the town of Dallas near Ridgway with  
Telluride. In 1890 the Rio Grande Southern Railroad was built over  
the divide from Ridgway to Telluride.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide

Modern day photos: http://tinyurl.com/32xm7x

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Placerville is an unincorporated town and a U.S. Post Office located  
in San Miguel County, Colorado, United States. Placerville was  
originally established as a small mining camp, named after the placer  
mines located on the San Miguel River and Leopard Creek. The location  
became known as Old Placerville after the Rio Grande Southern  
Railroad constructed a depot and several passing sidings west of the  
original settlement, calling it Placerville.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placerville,_Colorado

Placerville Train Stations: http://tinyurl.com/3dg62q

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The San Miguel River is a tributary of the Dolores River,  
approximately 90 mi (145 km) long in southwestern Colorado in the  
United States. It rises in the San Juan Mountains southeast of  
Telluride and flows northwest, along the southern slope of the  
Uncompahgre Plateau, past the towns of Placerville and Nucla and  
joins the Dolores in western Montrose County approximately 15 mi (24  
km) east of the state line with Utah. The San Miguel is more or less  
free flowing; however, diversion dams dot the river and alter flows.  
The San Miguel varies in gradient, from extremely steep in its upper  
reaches (forming a shallow, rocky, unnavigable stream) to more mellow  
in the lower sections (30-50 feet per mile of drop, which offers the  
whitewater boater a variety of runs all within the class II+--III  
range). All told, the San Miguel drops over 7000' from an alpine  
ecosystem to the desert.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_River_%28Colorado%29

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The electricity from Ilium Valley refers to the Ames Power Plant:

"If electricity were religion, the Ames Power Plant would be hallowed  
ground. It was here, in 1891, from a wooden shack in a short-lived  
mining camp down the hill from tiny Ophir in southwestern Colorado,  
that the modern electrical current was first generated and  
transmitted for commercial use. It also was here that the vision of  
Nikola Tesla, a young engineer from Croatia, prevailed over that of  
his more famous rival, Thomas Edison."
   http://bobalden.com/courses/eps/ames.htm

"In the 1880's, Nunn acquired the Gold King Mining Company in Ames,  
Colorado. Due to the high price of coal ($40 to $50 a ton), which was  
needed to operate the ore processing mill, Nunn and his brother, Paul  
N. Nunn, along with George Westinghouse, began to experiment with a 6- 
foot Pelton water wheel to generate alternating current. In 1890,  
Nunn put the first commercial alternating current plower plant, which  
transmitted 3000 volts three miles, into operation at Ames. In 1894,  
the Ames plant was furnishing power to all the mines in the Telluride  
area. With this success, Nunn formed the Telluride Power Company,  
which would eventually service more than twenty towns and cities in  
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah."
   http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/olmstead/

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[281:20-22] "Beside the tracks at one bend stood a local lunatic, who  
you could easily swear'd been there for years, screaming at the  
trains.                             "To-Hell-you-ride! [...] ain't  
too late to turn back!""

A Colorado Charon warning against continuing:

An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
Crying: "Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!
Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
I come to lead you to the other shore,
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.
And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!"
                           (Inferno/Canto 3)

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