Alamosa February 8-11 1962

Alamosa February 8-11 1962

I thought I would experiment a little with the way the current material is being posted.

Rather than typing up quoted letter passages I will post copies of the
original letters. And try out posting copies of dispatcher train sheets.

My dad wrote letters to my mom February 8 and February 16 before writing the 13 page letter to me dated March 6. If I post copies from both sets of letters there may some duplication.

There were no narrow gauge trains from February 8 through February 11, with the exception of Farmington Branch turn February 9. My dad was not able to leave Alamosa until February 12.

February 8 1962:

From the letter dated March 6.

(Met Gene Harden)



OK, this did not work out so well. Copies of letters to my mom showed up too large on the screen so I had to delete them. Not sure how to correct that problem.

Letter to my mom dated February 8:

"The narrow gauge train came in about 5 last eve and I met Harden. A young guy, seems to be OK. He said to come back at 8 this AM, which I did, but don’t think there’ll be a train until tomorrow. There was supposed to be one today, and I have to check again this PM. (It’s 11:20 AM now.) Asked him if I could get all my stuff in a ng caboose and he said they take an extra caboose, so that’s OK….I think the man at Sublette comes to Antonito every week and (lives there, I guess)but I won’t as there’s no place to stay and there would be no sense in it anyway.
Bud says it’s good rock country up there so maybe I’ll still be there when the snow is gone (I hope). Bud is a rock hound too. Had supper up town with him. Have found a good place to eat which doesn’t cost much more than if I ate myself. Except for breakfast the B&B men eat there. I get along with breakfast and supper, so it doesn’t cost too much. Big trouble is, I am not making any money. But I figured I’d have to wait for train. Think I’ll load my stuff here then take the Chev to Antonito to leave it and catch the train there. (Met Bob Nance this AM too). Even Supt McEnany was here.
This is a busy yard, has a diesel switcher plugging around and they transfer stuff (mostly pipe now) from SG cars to NG. Has a round house & car shops. They’re overhauling nos. 473 and 478 (have em all torn down) and the NG passenger cars. Jim should be here. There’s 6 NG engines setting out doors by the round house."

Dispatcher train sheet

February 9 1962

Durango extra 497 Farmington branch turn
Engineer Shock
Conductor Lyons

Depart Durango 9:05 AM with 1 empty
Carbon Jct 25 minutes pick up
San Juan 15 minutes set out
Arrive Farmington 12:55 PM with 25 loads 1 empty, 40 minutes lunch, 1 hour 45 minutes switching
Depart Farmington 3:20 PM with 20 loads 17 empties
Carbon Jct 10 minutes set out
Arrive Durango 6:10 PM with 5 empties

Jimmy



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2019 09:08PM by Jimmy Blouch.