Re: Seaching for existing answers . . .

CVR220 Wrote:
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> What years were the Red Devil coal loaders
> installed at Alamosa and Antonito?


Many times the answer has already been posted -

There are many very knowledgeable historians who post on the NGDF, and chances are good that – unless it's a REALLY obscure topic – your question has already been answered sometime during the seventeen-plus years of the NGDF's existence.

OTOH, simply keying 'Red Devil' – or any other subject – into the data-entry area of the "SEARCH" function at the upper right corner of an NGDF page is POINTLESS, since the TERRIBLE current search engine defaults to entering the person who is currently logged in and initiating the search as the author of the posts for which one is searching.*  But if you click on the advanced link below the "SEARCH" button you'll be presented with an input window that can help find all previous posts regarding something about which you may have questions.

For example, I keyed 'Red Devil' into the data-entry box, selected 'Exact Phrase' from the criteria choices to the right, selected 'Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum' from the options to be searched, and 'All Dates' from the options of how far back to look.  Pressing the SEARCH button then returned SIX PAGES of posts – 172 total – regarding the 'Red Devil' loader, and a few lines down on the sixth page I found the following reference.  I didn't even have to click on the link and read the full post:

Quote

    Antonito coal loader - 14 years ago
        The Antonito coaling trestle was replaced by a Red Devil Coaler in September of 1956.
        by Jim McKee - Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum

- Willie

*  The current SEARCH function is also WORTHLESS when it comes to finding dates — or any other search criteria containing numbers or special characters of any kind   It works ONLY with letters & spaces – including some names, like "Haich" – but not "O'Mannder", since the latter contains an apostrophe.   There's a work-around for this, though - follow Radar Sidetrack's suggestion on [ngdiscussion.net] and search using Google by appending " site:ngdiscussion.net" to your Google search criteria.