Yeah, It was....I was hired by Road foreman Pierce in Alamosa mid May '63, and made student trips all over. Std gauge to Creede and LaVeta on the diesels (boring) and a few trips over Cumbres to Chama and return. Gayle Cunningham broke me in on the scoop on the 490's
I made my first pay trip mid-July 1963 on the 484 from Alamosa to Chama firing for Pete Degani, then two hill turns the next day, and thru back to Alamosa on the third day. On 4th August, got sent from Alamosa over to Durango by bus as they had put the second Silverton train on, and the regular crew took that, so they needed another fireman over there.
August 6th 1963 was my first trip east to Chama, on the 492, ....But I was worked as the head brakeman that day instead of fireman, Al Stevenson was hind man, and Punk Blackstone was the skipper. Richard Thate was the fireman, Virgil Headrick was the hogger.
That was the day we hit the big rock over near Navajo...They hauled us
all back to Durango that night.
I fired the wreck train out there the next days while they cleaned it up.
After that I stayed on the west end until laid off in late October '63.
I worked every single day the rest of that summer into fall except Labor Day, east to Chama, on the Silverton run, Farmington turn, or on the switch engine a couple times. I got to fire for all the old timers
still working like Jack Waterman, Steve Connor, Virgil Headrick, and Bill Holt. Those guys were all fine men and taught me much.
and I got to fire engines all over the then-existing Narrow Gauge.
I figured I was lucky to have got to do all that at that late date in the NG operations on the D&RGW.
The following spring I was laid off permanently due to the Arbitration award over the "Featherbedding Issue"..(go figure!).
I was pissed off about that, but needed to work to make money to finish my college degree in EE, and so grabbed the first thing that came along which was a Switchman's job on the WPRR at Sacramento, CA, and later over in the WP's 25th street yards San Francisco on the west end of the Oakland ferry run. Made enough $$ to finish school, (somehow without getting maimed or killed) and pulled the pin late summer '64. The WP gave me a nice pass on the cushions all the way back to Salt Lake City. I thumbed a ride down to Durango, and found out then I could have gone back down there earlier that spring and hired out firing all over again as an experienced man....(Grrrrr...)
Leonard Winckel was the RH Foreman Durango then, another really fine man to work for,
But it was too late by then, and after finishing my BSEE degree at CSU in Fort Collins fall of 1964, I went back to work on the D&RGW in the Communications Department for the next nine years.
Left the RR in '73 and ended up here in Alaska. Never went
back on the iron...But those sure were fun times for a young
single guy....Paid pretty good too.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2014 08:43PM by Etrump.
