Re: Winter Work On D&RGW #480 At Alamosa February 1963!

More 480 trivia....

I found a monthly report dated July, 1966 for 480. She had been out of service for a few years when it was made but the Grande continued to file OOS reports for all the locomotives stored in Alamosa until they were sold in 1981.

Martin's annual shows the flues renewed in June, 1958. Back under the old regulations, in daily service you were allowed 48 months of service, then you would need to reflue the engine. However, you could lengthen the flue time if the engine was out of service during those 48 months. You could add up your out of service months and add that to the 48 months. However, you could not get more than one more year (12 months) out of the flue time, for a total of 60 months. Beyond that you either had to apply for an extension, or reflue the boiler. Without figuring the OOS months, 480 would have needed refluing at the end of June, 1963.

On the back of the form I have is listed the out of service months (this is probably on the back of Martin's too). The months 480 was out of service and not run were:

1958 - Dec.
1959 - Jan. thru May
1960 - May - July - Aug
1962 - Jan. - Feb. - Mar.
1963 - May - June

480 was out of service a total of 18 months since her flue job in June, 1958. That gave her another 12 months of service before needing to be reflued or applying for an extension. With only 12 more months of service ahead of her before re-flueing, 480 was used rather regularly (as much as any engine was) for those next 12 months. With her flue time to expire at the end of the month, 480 made her last trip from Alamosa on May 26 probably doubleheaded with 484. On May 27, 480 made 2 Cumbres Turns with 484. 480's crew was Bill Holt and Stan Smith. The next day, May 28, 480 helped 484 up the hill with the remainder of the eastbound train, then returned to Chama as 484 took the combined hill turns on the Alamosa. Holt and Smith were on 484 and 480's crew was Lee Otteson and Gayle Cunningham.

480, Otteson and Cunningham then cooled thier heels in Chama for a couple of days. On May 29, the annual RMRRC Memorial Day trip went westward through Chama behind 488. It appears that Holt and Smith were again teamed up to run 488 from Alamosa on the RMRRC Special. Bob Shock and Virgil Headrick deadheaded over from Durango to run 488 on west.

May 30 both crews appear to be idle in Chama, but as they were now on "penalty time" for not getting called within 8 hrs of their rest being up. They were getting paid straight time to sit around and play cards or go fishing.....

On May 31, the RMRRC trip came back east behind 487, Holt and Smith got on 487 and ran the RMRRC special back to Alamosa. Otteson and Cunningham did the honors of running 480 back to Alamosa as the helper for 487 on the RMRRC trip from Chama to Cumbres, then ran light to Alamosa on her last run under D&RGW ownership.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2016 10:25AM by Earl.