Galloping Goose - revisited

The Galloping Goose on display is one of six existing units out of a series of 7, each slightly different than the others, all hand built one of a kind. This unit moves between here in winter, Telluride in Summer and occasionally to Dolores where it and the unit stationed there make a short run for the National Convention of Railroaders once a year. Virtual caches at Telluride and Dolores represent the Galloping Goose to the Geo community as "A Funny Way to Ride the Rails #1 & #2" < GC76D6 > & < GC7704 > Also on permanent display is an operational replica by a local builder of the very first unit of the series, Motor #1

Dolores was the company headquarters of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad (RGS) during the time that the Galloping Goose's were in service. Built in the early 30's to reduce the costs of running steam engines for small loads and save the company from bankruptcy, the first two were built from Buick "Master Six" four-door sedans. The next 5 used original front chassis from Pierce-Arrow sedans, then later repowered them with WW2 surplus GMC engines, and now refitted with modern day heavy duty diesel engine & transmission units, but the Pierce-Arrow bonnet still remains. The rear half of each was repurposed from time to time as needed using truck stake beds, half of passenger and\or cargo rail cars, and even school bus bodies - welding the frames together as needed. Many of the later units used parts and pieces scavenged from earlier units.

Up until 2018 The Ouray County Railroad Museum was located at the County Fairgrounds and a regular cache was located there in the base of a light pole - which is what first brought the Galloping Goose to our attention. The RR Museum board raised the funds to erect a structure under which to park its collection and moved the museum to this location in 2019 and the Galloping Goose was just moved from Telluride 2 weeks ago from the date of this setting of the cache. The Telluride location is completely out in the open and the Galloping Goose is occasionally snowed in over the top, thus the wintering here in Ridgeway where there is much less snow and now under roof.

For the full history of the Galloping Goose visit the Wikipedia article by the same name.

On those rare occasions when the train is actually being used as a part of an event and is parked at the steps used to board the train, the cache may be difficult to access, in part as that means there will be TONS of tourists (muggles) lined up to board. Use caution when recovering the cache under these circumstances

Signage at the outdoor portion of the RR museum states "Always Open - Always Free" and based on what we were seeing the cache should be accessible 24/7 with lots of parking available, even for bigger rigs. To learn more of the RR and local area history be sure and look around the nearby museums and public park (along with the old fire station) directly to the west, which was used for much of the filming of John Wayne in "True Grit."