By Anne Dyni

Columns@lhvc.com

Niwot was considered a railroad town until the 1930s

when trains no longer made regular stops for

passengers, freight and mail. When station agent

Newt Spangler officially closed the depot doors in 1932,

Niwot was reduced to a flag station. The only trains to

stop were those flagged down by the stationmaster.

The passenger side of the station was removed in 1943,

and by 1955 the entire building was gone from its site

west of the tracks.

Recently, bits of early railroad memorabilia have returned

to remind us of Niwot's past. There are two switch stands

and a maintenance crew push car on display near the

corner of First Avenue and Murray Street. In addition,

three cabooses have been hauled into town over the

past several years.

he most recent of these is also the most visible.

Caboose #14649 sits along the tracks just north of

Niwot Road and is easily seen from the Diagonal

Highway. It was built in 1907 for the Chicago Burlington

and Quincy Railroad. The caboose was retired in the

1950s and became a wood shop at the Colorado

Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado. There, its

cupola and wheels were removed and it was painted

a pale yellow.

Eventually outlasting its usefulness, it was donated to the

Boulder County Railway Historical Society (BCRHS).

As it awaited restoration in the trainyard northeast of

Boulder, word came that the Niwot Business Association

was attempting to revive public interest in Niwot's railroad

history. A loan agreement was drawn up and the scruffy

caboose was hauled into town where volunteers eagerly

waited to repair it, paint it and replace its missing cupola. 

Little is known about the second caboose in town except

that it was bought "on impulse." It rests on track behind Le Chantecler restaurant at Second Avenue and Franklin Street. Alice Platt was part owner of the WhyNot Café, which preceded Le Chantecler in that location. She discovered the old Colorado & Southern caboose in a field on North 63rd Street. As an antique lover, Platt was attracted to the old relic. Only later did she discover how difficult it was to move it.

"You don't just hook it up to a wagon," she said. It was relocated behind her café in 1988 where it was converted to an apartment. More recently, it has accommodated a series of small businesses.

The third caboose, #48, arrived in Niwot just like all the others - on a flatbed truck. With the help of a crane, it was lifted over the white picket fence at 100 Murray Street and placed on its new steel under-frame and wheels. Old #48 shares a similar history with #14649. Constructed in 1908, it operated on the St. Joseph & Grand Island Railroad until its retirement in 1950. It, too, was saved from the scrap heap to become a yard office for two construction-related businesses.

In 1984, it was moved to the Forney Transportation Museum in Denver where it continued to be used as an outbuilding. When the entire

museum collection was moved to another site in 1999, there was no further need for the tired old caboose. Once again it seemed headed for the scrap pile, but was rescued by Jason Midyette, president and co-founder of the BCRHS. It is the only one of Niwot's three cabooses to retain its wooden roof walk, a flat surface where brakemen could move between cars as they set brakes.

Cabooses were widely used until the mid-1980s when rising costs prompted railroad companies to eliminate brakemen from their train crews. Although Niwot's three cabooses are retired from service now, they remain instantly recognizable as relics of an earlier time.