After a frosty night in Chama, the hostlers got busy to prepare the engines for their runs back to Durango and Alamosa. With both engines returning to their starting terminals, the hostlers coupled 493 and 497 and turned them together on the wye. Here they are returning between the string of box cars that had been waiting in Chama for two weeks, and the train that had been brought by 497 the day before.
With the serviced engines waiting for the road crews to finish breakfast at Kelly's Bar, there was a little time to spend in the warm cab of 497. The Alamosa crew would shortly start switching out the Weidman lumber loads brought from Durango, service the Skyline Lumber mill in Chama and assemble the morning Cumbres turn. The Durango crew would assemble their train after the departure of 493 with the Cumbres turn. This provided a window of opportunity to chase the Cumbres turn before returning for the Durango-bound train.
The morning Cumbres turn consisted of 9 loads of lumber from the Weidman mill using both box cars and flat cars. One could usually distinguish between Weidman loads and those from Skyline, as Weidman used box cars and double-stacked lumber on flat cars. Skyline only loaded flat cars and stacked the lumber on a single level.
493 charging along the old Cumbres Pass dirt road
Long before the fences and signs went up, heading to the west side of the Lobato bridge was no problem. Although the full tonnage train was not moving very fast, one had to move right along to beat the train to this spot