"Go West, Young Man" - The Last REAL Freights, Alamosa to Lobato (08/28/68)

Meanwhile, down east in Alamosa -

Your's Truly was extremely flattered to have an article published in TRAINS a couple of months ago – almost word-for-word from my original manuscript – which leads to a bit of a quandry.  The narrative describes the taking of five of my photos done fifty years ago today (and tomorrow), but only one of them appeared in the magazine – so here are four (and maybe one more) from Kalmbach's kutting-room floor.

After spending a very damp early morning huddled in my canvas-topped TR-4 during a hellascious thunderstorm, I was greeted by an incredible scene at dawn – #483 backing out of the roundhouse through the thinning fog, with Mount Blanca shrouded in clouds behind:


(OK, I confess – the sun was shining much more brightly through the amber lenses of the more distant switchstand than through the green lenses of the closer one, so I amplified the latter just a bit . . .     )

The subsequent three or four photos of helper #483 being supplied with fuel & water, moving through the yard with road engine #484, and pumping up the air after coupling to the train have been posted previously (see [ngdiscussion.net] and [ngdiscussion.net]), so I won't re-enter them here; the photo of firemen Gayle Cunningham and Jim Shawcroft leaning from their charges as the train left town was featured as well, so I'll skip to "Racing to Oblivion", taken somewhere between Alamosa and La Jara:


That's Olaf Rasmussen and his dad in the FolksVagen; Olaf's movies taken that day (and the next) are featured on the "Rio Grande Freights" DVD handed out to riders of this past weekend's commemorative charter and available from the TRAINS store.

Nit-pickers might complain about the non-aluminium smokeboxes and the cinder catchers on the stacks of last Sunday's train, but the biggest difference between this scene in 1968 at mile 305.5 and the one re-created two days ago in 2018 is the vegetation:


This long-distance shot of the last real westbound freight arriving at the top of Cumbres Pass also illustrates the line's future — there's a dozer working in the background, and the stakes marking the location of the new highway are clearly visible if you look closely enough:


This last shot, taken as road engine #484 crossed Lobato Trestle, was the last one on my second roll of color film:


After taking the above, I headed west to catch #498 arriving from Durango at about the same time that Ernie stopped following #498 in order to catch the westbound train arriving from Alamosa . . .

(To be continued.)

- El Abuelo Histœrico, Greengo y Curmudgeoño de los Locomoturas Viejos y Verdes,
aka Der Grossväterlich DünkelOlivGrünDampfKesselMantelLiebHabender



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2018 07:19PM by Russo Loco.