How Rumors and Legends get started...

For the Umpteenth Time:
483 does not have a damaged crownsheet. Whoever wrote that who knows how many years ago needs to be taken out and flogged as it is the only piece of information he every wrote that anyone remembers!
483 has a bad REAR TUBE SHEET. The tube holes are all oversized and badly out of round. The knuckle bend where the sheet curves over and rivets to the crownsheet has severe grooving from the action of the water moving over it and needs replacement too. This is a repair that has been performed several times on other engines in Chama and should not be considered a "terminal condition". FYI, 484, 487, 489, 497 and when back together 488, have all had this repair done by the C&TS.
497's bad reputation needs to go away too. It ran quite nicely and quite dependably from 1992 through 1999. It's 2 derailments it had since then were caused by deficient track structure, not by 497. After its derailment at MP 310 in 2000, the next locomotive across the spot (487) also derailed. 497's derailment in 2001 was likewise not its fault, but caused by a faulty temporary transition joint between old 70 lb and new 90 lb rail on a curve. Any locomotive would have derailed there too.