Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 4: OM-74
| December 04, 2010 10:26PM |
|
I heard on the news recently that our latest “Great Recession” ended in June of 2009 (you can believe that if you want to), and it goes in the record book as the longest recession since WWII, beating out the 1973-1975 event by a few days or weeks or something.
How well I remember that one! I had hired on with Scenic Railways, Inc. in the Spring of 1973, loaded my wife and all our important possessions into our (her) 1966 Ford Falcon, and moved from Ohio to Chama, New Mexico with visions of a career in narrow gauge railroading dancing in my head. The season started off well enough and we sailed along well on our way to achieving the early patronage projections for the C&TS. Then in October, just as the season was wrapping up, something hit the fan – and it wasn’t snow!
On October 17 OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the U.S. In less than no time, it seemed, the cost of gasoline at the pump had quadrupled – if you could get gas at all; the government was encouraging “voluntary rationing” and printing gas ration stamps “just in case” (although I don’t think they were ever distributed); people were being urged to spend their next vacation at home; and a severe recession hit.
Now, if you weren’t there you can’t even imagine the impact these developments had on everybody. They came out of the blue, following on a 30 year period of growth and prosperity. Our current economic distress is bad for sure, but it’s just one more in a series, and the series started in 1973. Scenic had finished the season with barely enough money in the bank to meet its off-season obligations, the greatest of which was the monthly payments on the six custom busses they had just purchased to meet their real or imagined obligation to “serve each community equally.” The expectation was that enough advanced reservations would start rolling in early in 1974 to provide the cash flow needed to crank up the next season. By Thanksgiving Scenic directors, asking themselves “What if we have a season and nobody comes?” had postponed the 1974 season brochure order that was about to go to press, pending revisions in the schedule, and no one was sure there would even be a 1974 season.
So, there we were, a bunch of city boys from the Midwest and California, sitting in Chama, 100 miles from civilization, committed to a project that suddenly seemed to be dead in the water, unemployed, flatass broke, with no idea what we were going to do next. At lunch one day, as we were (dis)cussing the dire situation for the umpteenth time, somebody said something like “Hey, let’s go out in a blaze of glory, lets run the rotary!” And the rest, as they say, is history.
We presented the idea to Fritz and he said something like “Yea, right!” Then we called Keller out in California and he said something like, “That’s a great idea boys. If you can pull this off without any money, why go right ahead and do it!” So we did.
And here’s how we did it.
First, we called everyone together who was still in town to see who would be willing to do this on their own time. There was just enough interest to make it seem possible, so we came up with a jobs list and divvied up the work. From this point on we kept track of our time, “just in case.” We used our yard switcher (the #19) to move the OM into the enginehouse so that Bob Madril, the only Scenic employee who had actually had experience with the rotaries when he worked in the Alamosa shops, could check her over. He thought we were a little crazy (well, OK, he already knew we were) but he did a hydro on the OM’s boiler and pronounced it quite fit. He allowed that with a few minor repairs and adjustments she would be good to go. At that point we randomly selected January 12 for the event. I put out word on the railfan rumor mill that we might do a test fire-up of the OM and maybe throw a little snow (kinda like the recent fire-up on the Cog), and also managed to beat the deadline for classified ads in Trains, Railfan, Railroad and Model Railroader – which I paid for out of my own pocket. That was all the promotion we did.
Coal was a concern, given the agreement with the Company that we had to do it on whatever resources were at hand. We inspected all the tenders in the yard, climbed into the tipple (we were still using it in those days) to see what might be there, and concluded there was just enough coal scattered around the property to fire up an engine and the rotary and keep them under steam for three days at most, with one day of operation. IIRC, there was still some coal in the OM’s tender and we topped it off by transferring coal from the 483 and 484. That transfer was a chore, but the coal tipple was a story in itself. All that was left in there was the coal that had hung up on the slope sheets, and it was frozen by the time we got to it. So one day after lunch (the warmest part of the day of course) John Oldberg, Bernie Watts, Gary Getman, Richard and I grabbed picks and shovels and spike mauls, climbed into the tipple and started in to breaking up the coal and kicking it down into the chute. At one point, as we stopped to catch our breath, we counted up our combined years of college and how many degrees we had between us, and had to wonder just how damned smart you had to be to do what we were doing. With that done we knocked off for Christmas. No snow yet.
I continued to visit the depot daily to check on the mail and phone messages, and was soon amazed at the responses we were getting. At some point we had come up with a ticket price to ride the train and a “pacer pass” for train chasers who wanted to help defray expenses. I don’t remember now how much we charged, but it was pretty steep for the times. Paying to pace was a pretty novel idea, but it was well received. Gary Getman offered to make plaster casts of the OM’s builder’s plate as a souvenir for those who bought train or pacer passes, and he spent his holiday casting and painting these in “OM gray.” I think he also came up with the special badge we would use in lieu of tickets, figuring that on the train they would be easier to see, and for the pacers they would be kind of a badge of honor. Those we printd on the office copy machine. So that was about it. All we needed was snow.
On New Year’s Eve a winter storm system moved in and it started to snow. The shop crew reported for “work” on the 2nd with ten days to get everything ready, and there was already several inches of snow on the ground. The blizzard raged on as the OM was readied for action. By January 8th the shop crew was ready to prep the 487, but it was several hundred feet south of the enginehouse. There was now over two feet of fresh snow on the track, and the storm continued unabated. From worrying about the lack of snow we were now wondering if any of the fans, many of whom were already on the road, would even get here. I remember one guy, driving out from New York, called me two or three times a day to make sure it was still a go. The storm system extended well east of the Mississippi and he didn’t want to risk his life driving through it if we weren’t going to run. I worried about that man till he walked through the door.
Meanwhile, the shop crew fabricated a pilot plow for the #19, Max and the track gang showed up, and everyone else who could wield a shovel pitched in. After only two days of hard work we had the 487 in the house. It was at this point that someone observed that the good ol’ days really couldn’t have been all that good. On Thursday the 10th , the 487 and the OM were fired up as the storm showed signs of clearing. On Friday, we shoveled out yet again to put a train together, and a small but determined group of railfans, including the guy from New York, started to arrive on the heels of the departing storm.
The train whistled off at 10am on the 12th and stopped for the first photo run at the yard limits. With forty plus fans on board, and at least that many more paid chasers, we plowed about two miles of line with better than three feet of fresh snow in places.
When it was all over and the equipment was put up for the winter, we tallied up the total man hours involved. Allthe coal and most of the diesel fuel on the property had been consumed, so the first thing to come out of the proceeds was enough money for a load of coal and a tank of fuel. Then we paid back the out-of-pocket expenses we had incurred ourselves – such as my paying for the classified ads. What was left was divided by the total number of man hours, and that determined our wages. I think it came out to something like fifty cents an hour.
"Sometimes he remembers things that never happened and forgets things that did happen!" Mrs. B.
Source:
An Illustrated Review of Winter Operations on the C&TS RR, souvenir program writen for Winter Special 1978.
The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-1974.
My slide collection and my memory.
See also:
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 1: Meeting Fritz
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 2: Expectations
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 3A: 1973, Filling Trains
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 3B: 1973, "If the world ended today...."
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 5A: 1974, Biting the Bullet
About the author
Also of interest:
How Many Winter Specials did Scenic Railways operate?
Bite the Bullet Photo Gallery
"Time spent with CATS is never wasted." -- Sigmund Freud
"Nothing endures but change." -- Heraclitus
"C'est le meilleur des mondes possibles." -- Candide
Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2011 08:52PM by gothpapa.
How well I remember that one! I had hired on with Scenic Railways, Inc. in the Spring of 1973, loaded my wife and all our important possessions into our (her) 1966 Ford Falcon, and moved from Ohio to Chama, New Mexico with visions of a career in narrow gauge railroading dancing in my head. The season started off well enough and we sailed along well on our way to achieving the early patronage projections for the C&TS. Then in October, just as the season was wrapping up, something hit the fan – and it wasn’t snow!
On October 17 OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the U.S. In less than no time, it seemed, the cost of gasoline at the pump had quadrupled – if you could get gas at all; the government was encouraging “voluntary rationing” and printing gas ration stamps “just in case” (although I don’t think they were ever distributed); people were being urged to spend their next vacation at home; and a severe recession hit.
Now, if you weren’t there you can’t even imagine the impact these developments had on everybody. They came out of the blue, following on a 30 year period of growth and prosperity. Our current economic distress is bad for sure, but it’s just one more in a series, and the series started in 1973. Scenic had finished the season with barely enough money in the bank to meet its off-season obligations, the greatest of which was the monthly payments on the six custom busses they had just purchased to meet their real or imagined obligation to “serve each community equally.” The expectation was that enough advanced reservations would start rolling in early in 1974 to provide the cash flow needed to crank up the next season. By Thanksgiving Scenic directors, asking themselves “What if we have a season and nobody comes?” had postponed the 1974 season brochure order that was about to go to press, pending revisions in the schedule, and no one was sure there would even be a 1974 season.
So, there we were, a bunch of city boys from the Midwest and California, sitting in Chama, 100 miles from civilization, committed to a project that suddenly seemed to be dead in the water, unemployed, flatass broke, with no idea what we were going to do next. At lunch one day, as we were (dis)cussing the dire situation for the umpteenth time, somebody said something like “Hey, let’s go out in a blaze of glory, lets run the rotary!” And the rest, as they say, is history.
We presented the idea to Fritz and he said something like “Yea, right!” Then we called Keller out in California and he said something like, “That’s a great idea boys. If you can pull this off without any money, why go right ahead and do it!” So we did.
And here’s how we did it.
First, we called everyone together who was still in town to see who would be willing to do this on their own time. There was just enough interest to make it seem possible, so we came up with a jobs list and divvied up the work. From this point on we kept track of our time, “just in case.” We used our yard switcher (the #19) to move the OM into the enginehouse so that Bob Madril, the only Scenic employee who had actually had experience with the rotaries when he worked in the Alamosa shops, could check her over. He thought we were a little crazy (well, OK, he already knew we were) but he did a hydro on the OM’s boiler and pronounced it quite fit. He allowed that with a few minor repairs and adjustments she would be good to go. At that point we randomly selected January 12 for the event. I put out word on the railfan rumor mill that we might do a test fire-up of the OM and maybe throw a little snow (kinda like the recent fire-up on the Cog), and also managed to beat the deadline for classified ads in Trains, Railfan, Railroad and Model Railroader – which I paid for out of my own pocket. That was all the promotion we did.
Coal was a concern, given the agreement with the Company that we had to do it on whatever resources were at hand. We inspected all the tenders in the yard, climbed into the tipple (we were still using it in those days) to see what might be there, and concluded there was just enough coal scattered around the property to fire up an engine and the rotary and keep them under steam for three days at most, with one day of operation. IIRC, there was still some coal in the OM’s tender and we topped it off by transferring coal from the 483 and 484. That transfer was a chore, but the coal tipple was a story in itself. All that was left in there was the coal that had hung up on the slope sheets, and it was frozen by the time we got to it. So one day after lunch (the warmest part of the day of course) John Oldberg, Bernie Watts, Gary Getman, Richard and I grabbed picks and shovels and spike mauls, climbed into the tipple and started in to breaking up the coal and kicking it down into the chute. At one point, as we stopped to catch our breath, we counted up our combined years of college and how many degrees we had between us, and had to wonder just how damned smart you had to be to do what we were doing. With that done we knocked off for Christmas. No snow yet.
I continued to visit the depot daily to check on the mail and phone messages, and was soon amazed at the responses we were getting. At some point we had come up with a ticket price to ride the train and a “pacer pass” for train chasers who wanted to help defray expenses. I don’t remember now how much we charged, but it was pretty steep for the times. Paying to pace was a pretty novel idea, but it was well received. Gary Getman offered to make plaster casts of the OM’s builder’s plate as a souvenir for those who bought train or pacer passes, and he spent his holiday casting and painting these in “OM gray.” I think he also came up with the special badge we would use in lieu of tickets, figuring that on the train they would be easier to see, and for the pacers they would be kind of a badge of honor. Those we printd on the office copy machine. So that was about it. All we needed was snow.
On New Year’s Eve a winter storm system moved in and it started to snow. The shop crew reported for “work” on the 2nd with ten days to get everything ready, and there was already several inches of snow on the ground. The blizzard raged on as the OM was readied for action. By January 8th the shop crew was ready to prep the 487, but it was several hundred feet south of the enginehouse. There was now over two feet of fresh snow on the track, and the storm continued unabated. From worrying about the lack of snow we were now wondering if any of the fans, many of whom were already on the road, would even get here. I remember one guy, driving out from New York, called me two or three times a day to make sure it was still a go. The storm system extended well east of the Mississippi and he didn’t want to risk his life driving through it if we weren’t going to run. I worried about that man till he walked through the door.
Meanwhile, the shop crew fabricated a pilot plow for the #19, Max and the track gang showed up, and everyone else who could wield a shovel pitched in. After only two days of hard work we had the 487 in the house. It was at this point that someone observed that the good ol’ days really couldn’t have been all that good. On Thursday the 10th , the 487 and the OM were fired up as the storm showed signs of clearing. On Friday, we shoveled out yet again to put a train together, and a small but determined group of railfans, including the guy from New York, started to arrive on the heels of the departing storm.
The train whistled off at 10am on the 12th and stopped for the first photo run at the yard limits. With forty plus fans on board, and at least that many more paid chasers, we plowed about two miles of line with better than three feet of fresh snow in places.
When it was all over and the equipment was put up for the winter, we tallied up the total man hours involved. Allthe coal and most of the diesel fuel on the property had been consumed, so the first thing to come out of the proceeds was enough money for a load of coal and a tank of fuel. Then we paid back the out-of-pocket expenses we had incurred ourselves – such as my paying for the classified ads. What was left was divided by the total number of man hours, and that determined our wages. I think it came out to something like fifty cents an hour.
"Sometimes he remembers things that never happened and forgets things that did happen!" Mrs. B.
Source:
An Illustrated Review of Winter Operations on the C&TS RR, souvenir program writen for Winter Special 1978.
The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-1974.
My slide collection and my memory.
See also:
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 1: Meeting Fritz
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 2: Expectations
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 3A: 1973, Filling Trains
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 3B: 1973, "If the world ended today...."
Scenic and the C&TS, an Oral History, Part 5A: 1974, Biting the Bullet
About the author
Also of interest:
How Many Winter Specials did Scenic Railways operate?
Bite the Bullet Photo Gallery
"Time spent with CATS is never wasted." -- Sigmund Freud
"Nothing endures but change." -- Heraclitus
"C'est le meilleur des mondes possibles." -- Candide
Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2011 08:52PM by gothpapa.
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488 stops for water at Los Pinos tank on closing day Oct. 1979. Photo courtesy Don Richter
The NGDF was started by Don Richter and is currently operated in his memory by Nathan Holmes and others. Others who have contributed to the upkeep of this board are (in no particular order): Charles McCandless, Everett Lueck, Ted Wilton, Cole Adams, James Bane, John Moellmer, Jon Bentz, Linn Moedinger, lloyd lehrer, Rod Jensen, John Craft, Steven Forney, Herb Kelsey, Bill Ramaley, Russ Sperry (El Russo Loco), Josh McNeal, John West, Jim Armstrong, Bob Bergstrom, Greg Scholl, Blake Forbes Doug van Veelen and Mark Fuller.