C&TS - June, 1982 - The Battle of Mud Tunnel.

The battle of Mud Tunnel probably started last October (1981). There was a small collapse at the west portal, which the section guys cleaned up. When we came back through with the movie train we saw it. The cave-in was just behind the west portal framework. The west portal frame work was standing all by itself, with the tunnel beginning about 10 feet behind it. It looked like some model railroader had put in the portal and not finished the scenery yet.

Inspections were made and Tim Gorton, the Commission’s resident Professional Engineer was called in (that is not his real name, but it sounds close to it and I don’t want to get sued). Remember, this guy also designed the new passenger cars. He had lots of suggestions. Some of the more memorable were: Daylight the tunnel and coat the resulting cut with concrete to keep the resulting 100 '+ deep dirt cut from sliding down and burying the track to removing all the trees from the mountain above the tunnel to reduce the weight bearing down on the tunnel…. One thing that was determined was the mud sills on the bottom of the side framing were rotten the pressure from above was pushing them into the mud. The immediate solution was to jack up the sides a bit, replace the rotten mudsills as needed and pour a concrete footing under the sills to keep them from sinking (which is why we hauled all that bagged cement in there). Work had been going since early May. The contractor was given use of a Motor car (012) and a speeder flat to move men and materials on. Then, they asked for a second motor car to further the project. This was granted with extreme reluctance as we all know what happens when two objects are run on a railroad toward each other without any communication.

Well, the inevitable happened on a Friday afternoon in early June. Late in the day, 012 went back to Sublette to get more supplies. When they took too long to get back, the other crew decided they had gone home for the weekend and started back themselves. They met with a big bang on a nice sharp curve in a cut east of Toltec. A couple of them got hurt pretty bad, I heard one guy got his leg impaled on a length of rebar. There was lots of yelling, finger pointing, lots of “I told you so’s” hollered back and forth. In the end, we ended up with two mangled Fairmonts and a bashed up speeder flat that the contractor’s insurance had to pay for. Despite being battered and mangled, the contractor toiled on. As far as we were concerned, all was well with the world.

The day after we got back from taking the train to Antonito, I came in late, because of our late night arrival home the night before. I got to the yard, Gary and Shop Forman Doug Stamps were having a heated discussion. As I walked up to them, Gary turned to me and loudly said “Tim Gorton is no longer welcome on this railroad”…… well, OK, so what’s up? “He has forbidden us from running through Mud Tunnel until his concrete work is done”. Hmm. That sucks. He seemed OK with us going through there yesterday…. “yeah, well he changed his mind….” It seems he underestimated the time it was going to take to pour all that footing in place, get it to set, and remove all the jacks to let the sills back down, and clear all that stuff out of the tunnel. In short, no Antonito Train until further notice.

So…. The plan was to annul the Antonito Train (aka The Colorado Limited or trains 1&4) at least for the first week we ran. Politics reared its head and it was decided that the Antonito gang would come over to Chama and run the train Saturday and Sunday, us Chama guys would run Monday and Tuesday. There were no trains on Wednesday and Thursday and hopefully next Friday we would be back to normal. So the train would run to Osier, the engine run around the train , run tank first to Cumbres, turn on the wye then pull the train home.

For the only time that I was employed by the C&TS, I was a bystander on opening day. 489 got the call for Saturday, June 12, 1982, so I chased the train and got some nice shots. As you can see spring was pretty late in showing up that year. The aspens were just beginning to leaf out

Here 489 digs into the 4% at MP 341 in the Narrows.


The train stretched out at Lobato reminds me of another big facelift we did before the season. We painted both train sets. In a "feeling of unity" we painted them with the same oil-based "Redwood Brown" that was being used on the new cars under construction in Antonito. That paint was good stuff, as most those old box car coaches STILL carry that paint job I think a few got repainted years later, but many still have that paint on them. It was Good Stuff. Also note there are no numbers on the cars. We didn't get that far before opening day. We got some metal signs made up with the numbers on them and later screwed them on.


I stood at Dalton Crossing and watched 489 thunder up the hill under a clear stack. I got this pic and wondered how long Dale would sit on the seat before putting a fire in her.


.....this is how long. Load 'er up Dale.


Rattling the new baby aspen leaves as Cresco....