In the early years that I was around the C&TS, I took a lot of black and while photos. Most got developed, but never printed. A few years ago, I scanned them all. Now I have my screen saver set up to show those folders. Every once in a while, I'll come across something that I didn't think I had.

In August 1990, The Friends built the display track in Antonito. Cal Smith was the Team Leader. Looks like we had some help from Max Pacheco. I think I brought the standard track gauge from Ft Collins as the railroad only had an adjustable gauge.

The real discovery in this image, is in the back ground. Notice that 495 is pointed the wrong way. Was that when it was moved to have the Vitamin A removed? The buildings across US 285 are still there. But what's that thing beyond the track? Maybe a caboose?

It would be a couple years before we started thinking we could restore that caboose. We didn't really know which one it was (Earl thought it might be 0579). Some of us questioned whether it was really a Rio Grande car. But we basically ignored it as project, because at that point work sessions were mostly concerned with scraping and painting cars that could operate.

Bill Kepner





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2020 09:33AM by drgw0579.