Seems like even though most of us know Earl from his time working on the C&TS in the 80's and 90's, he keeps on showing up at places we've been. So I thought it would be fun to put together a couple photos from places I ran into evidence of his presence.
Somehow we both found our way to the San Francisco area. Earl notes he ran the Kahuka engine (the ultimate mountain engine) on the Roaring Camp and Big Trees. This photo was taken a couple years after he left but shows the interesting contrast of scenery from some of the places he'll be in the future.
I'm going to include the next photo, because one day I was showing Carman some photos and even though her eyesight wasn't good, she felt she saw a photo of Earl on a Sierra RR fan trip in 1985. I wasn't trying to take a picture of the railfans leaning out the door, but they got in the way. I didn't recognize who it was from this photo, but she could.
Next of course was his time on the C&TS, where I first actually met him. We both served on the board of the Friends. When we were considering the start the cosmetic restoration of 0579, he basically challenged me by stating "Everything on this railroad should run." So we started the long operational restoration of 0579, instead of stuffing and mounting it on the Antonito display track. We also shared experiences at "Pooper's Curve" in 1991.
Earl is running the 19 with a car or two of materials for the Friends Cumbres project that year, with the rest of the passenger train following. It might have just been a helper that day.. This might have been the Wednesday before the work session (we had 3 day work sessions then) and by Sunday the 19 would be painted in Black and Gold.
He bounced around in Texas for a while and happened to work on the West Texas and Lubbock. I had gone to college in Lubbock, and got this photo of one of the thriving metropolises south of Brownfield before Santa Fe sold it. How much different than Roaring Camp!
next....
Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2019 06:19PM by drgw0579.