Length of line 17 miles Length of side tracks 8 miles 25 miles Floating debt Nil Bonded debt $425,000.00 Alex Anderson, Auditor At the time the foregoing statement was made, the Company owned the following equipment: 3 locomotives 2 coaches 1 baggage and express car In addition to the above, the company now owns 50 freight cars, which it has since purchased, and it also has a floating debt of $32,502.76. Alex Anderson, Auditor As has already been noted Engine 100 was purchased and put into service as soon as the railroad started operating. The Rio Grande Southern Railroad bought a number of engines in both 1890 and ’91 and, as it was not yet in operation and did not need so many, it kept its sister railroad in supply. A record of those it loaned to the S. R. in 1892 is as follows: No. 8—January 1 to April 12 No. 5—July 7 to November 19 No. 7—August 14 to September 2 No. 6—September 2 to October 10 No. 34—November 27 to December 31 A picture of No. 5 with a train at Summit may be found herein. It has always been supposed that the Shay engine belonged originally to the Silverton Railroad but the Lima Locomotive Works’ records reveal that Mears bought it under his own name in the spring of 1890. It, as No. 269, was used on construction of the Rio Grande Southern throughout that year and the next. It isn’t known how or when it got into the possession of the S. R. but it was with that company in the summer of 1892 and a picture of it on the lower leg of the turntable track exists. It seems to have been called both “Ironton” and “Guston” during this period. It was traded to the R. G. S. for the latter’s Engine 34 on November 27, 1892. (Note that the table above shows the 34 merely on loan. The trade date, however, is correct.) Locomotive 34 was a Baldwin of the 56 class which had, before going to the R. G. S., belonged to both the D. & R. G. and the R. G. W. The S. R. numbered it “101” but several years later changed it to a mere “1”. Red Mountain and Ironton became two flourishing towns with plenty of stores and all the appurtenances of civilization. In the eighties and early nineties Red Mountain had three newspapers. In 1890 it had a population of 598 while Ironton had 322. Even Chattanooga had a mill, some stores and 51 people. The locality was a beehive of activity as mines and mills were working every place. The hills were liberally sprinkled with houses, stores, mills, boarding houses, barns and mine buildings. An incendiary fire at Red Mountain on August 20, 1892 destroyed practically the whole town causing property damage estimated at $259,000. But nothing daunted these optimists. They immediately went about rebuilding it.