On December 5, 1967, I met Ernie Robart and Jeff Stebbins in Alamosa for what turned out to be the last freight of 1967, and the sixth-to-last revenue freight on the Rio Grande narrow gauge. I had driven up separately from Alamogordo the day before, rather than joining forces with Ernie and Jeff in Albuquerque, a seemingly trivial decision that would turn out to be pivotal point in my life and that would take my life into a totally unexpected direction.

The westbound train out of Alamosa that morning might have seemed like the start of another routine freight cycle. However it was far from routine, as it was a single-engine move bringing the second half of the train that 493 had brought to Chama two weeks earlier and left there, with no connecting operations out of Durango. Not only did half of the Farmington-bound train linger in Chama for two weeks, but when 497 took the combined sections to Durango on December 6, some of the loads were set out in Gato and suffered another extended delay. Such were some of the haphazard operations as narrow gauge freight operations neared the end.

Here is 493 getting a roll on her train on that frosty morning in Alamosa





493 is making a good 25-30 mph on the 3-rail track as the train rolls thru Estrella





493 took water at the small La Jara tank and headed out of town past the La Jara depot



Note: I merely took these and the following photos. Ernie Robart developed the negatives and Russ Sperry generously scanned most of them (a few are scans of B&W prints)

(to be continued)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2020 09:57PM by Olaf Rasmussen.