Re: Which 2 cabeese, Antonito-Chama & return, on 08/28-29/67?

Tomstp Wrote:
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> Your photo shows two Rio Grande cabooses on
> that train. I know about 0503, what was the other
> caboose number and is it still around?


SFAIK the second caboose was on the August 28 & 29, 1967 trains to accommodate John Gruber of TRAINS Magazine, Tom -

As noted previously, I was using my dad's mediocre old Praktica 35mm camera, and in some cases adding even more fuzziness from a cheap 2X extender.  I've looked back through my original high-res scans, but none of the negatives are sharp enough to clearly identify the second caboose.  OTOH my photos do seem to indicate a longer string of numbers than 0503, and there's a photo on page 104 of Ernie's book* showing caboose 04343 – with the small DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN lettering on the fascia board below the roof – in use for the break-in run of #476 & #478 in April of 1968, so #04343 was still in use right up to the end.  Another caboose, #0584, was in use just a week or so before my August, 1967 photos, but it doesn't have the railroad name on the fascia board that shows in my photos.

Two cabooses were on the 'hospital' train of December 5, 1968, from Alamosa to Chama, and since #0503 was turned over to the C&TS in 1970 I'll presume it was the one that returned to Alamosa with engine #483 on December 6, while the other – most likely either #04343 or #0584 – continued on to Durango with engine #476 pulling #481 dead-in-train.  IIRC, nearly all of the D&RGW cabeese were sold off after abandonment; SFAIK there's only one still in use in Durango and of course there's #0503 on the C&TS.

- Russ

*  'Rio Grande Narrow Gauge – The Final Years, Alamosa to Chama' by Joseph P. Hereford, Jr. and Ernest W. Robart.