Mississippi Wrote:
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> In John Norwood's book he describes the snow
> fighting of early 1952. It seems the 476 jack
> knifed hard into a slide around M.P 486 and the
> railroad was content with leaving it there until
> spring. The ICC more or less forced them into
> opening the line so cars of ore concentrate could
> be shipped by the Sunnyside. The engine was
> retrieved, onced over in the roundhouse and sent
> out with the 478 on a multi day snow busting trip
> that involved several nights spent in bunk cars in
> the canyon. A few return trips to the yard to fix
> the engines and then back out. He also mentioned
> bent valve motion rods being heated in the
> fireboxes and bent back straight.
>
> It sounds like quite the adventure, though I can't
> help but imagine the shop forces were less than
> excited to see the results. I've heard stories of
> the 476's "working" cylinder saddle being caused
> at least in part to ramming snow on The Silverton.
> Based on the stories, and seeing the engine being
> on the point with another pushing from behind begs
> the question; Was this outing what started those
> problems?
>
> Great pictures, Thanks Jerry.
>
> Alan
476 got the snot beat out of it in the winter of 1952. Between being derailed and buried in a snowslide at MP 486, to derailing coming back from snow bucking in the early spring, she had a tough time of it. The derailment coming back from Rockwood did some serious damage. The Durango guys tied to get her right then gave up as being beyond their expertise. So, a few days later they sent it east to Alamosa with a light train. Alamosa kept it for quite a while. In the meantime, the Silverton Branch was still blocked. The last train there was in late December, 1951, and it would be sometime in April before they got through again. As 478 was without a plow, they resorted to using plow-equipped 464. 464 had not been used since the last runs of the Rio Grande Southern in December 1951. As mentioned above, I too have wondered if 476's future running gear issues stemmed from this activity.
During all this, Cumbres was blocked by a massive storm starting in January. 491 got buried in drift at Long Creek. Flanger trains from each end got stuck trying to find her. They had 5 engines stuck in the snow between Osier and Windy Point. 3 engines and crews came from Durango and started shoving OM up the hill, while OY came west. I took nearly a month to dig the RR out. there were only 11 big engines in service on the 4th division at that time.
