Earl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We ran some in 2001 also. 2002 brought in the
> Forest Service closure, and I think ridership
> steadily dropped from there.
Triple headers in 2001:
Sat. Sept 8.
A special quasi railfan event put on by RGRPC. It was billed as a triple header special event. My thought was why would anyone come see a fake triple header on a 12 car train when they could come a few weeks later and see the real thing? So...... I put together a mixed train with some freight cars on the head end and 0503 on the year, and charged some reasonable fare to ride the caboose and come back to town on the freight train. The consist was:
463
6 or so freight cars
489
497
12 passenger cars
0503
481 tons
At Cumbres, 463 ducked into the clear, 489 turned back to Chama, 497 went east dropping the caboose for us. The dust jacket pic on Sam Fayakawa's book was taken showing 463 and freight cars in the south siding, 489 on the north siding and 497 headed east.
I ran 463, Sonni fired for me.
Sat, Sept 29, 2001
Train # 2
463 - Knoob, Ducky Martinez
489 - Stebbins
487 Garcia
20 cars - 486 tons
We left town 30 minutes late, watered all the engines leaving town, and watered everything again at Cresco.
463 had leaking flues.....
Sat, Oct 6, 2001
Train #2
463
497 - Knoob, Jim Ross
489
21 cars
493 tons
497 had a stick R-4 driving box wedge
That was the last triple header I worked on. If there were any revenue passenger trains requiring 3 engines in 2002 and beyond, I wasn't there.
During the Fall Stock Rush of 2001 (Sept 15- Oct 21) we ran 17 doubleheaders (plus the above triple headers) that I was involved with somehow. There might have been more, but I didn't work those days.
We were real busy then...... Even busier in the late 1990's. One Stock rush week we ran four 3 engine trains in one week (Sat, Sun, Tues and Thurs) - that was crazy...
