Re: Durango & C&TSRR & Chama Snow 12-24-08

Both Chama and Durango have lots of snow this year. The snow is piling up all over. But, remember the D&SNGRR trains are running in the snow. On Tues (12/22) a MOW special was running ahead of the regular Cascade Train. The MOW derailed at 32nd and so was 1/2 hour delayed while digging ice out of the street crossing. Still the Cascade train went OK. Today (Christmas), the snow is coming down hard and we expect a foot or so to be added to the pile. We are not running today, but I expect we're planning to go to Cascade in mid-day and take Santa Claus back to the North Pole in the evening.
The locomotive pushing snow is a beautiful sight, but we've already had more than I need this year.
I have not been to Silverton in several weeks, but surely they have a vast whiteness all over the land.
Last winter we had a snowslide near Tacoma. Because of avalanches and slides, both past and potential, the passengers are warned that they should stay close to the train as Cascade because at reboarding time the engineer is only going to blow 4 soft blasts on the whistle. I don't know of a case where the locomotive whistle actually set off a slide, but I guess it could happen.
Incidentally, if you drive the highways you may notice some signs refer to avalanches and some to snowslides. Here's my version of the distinction between terms:
slough -- a very small run of snow, narrow and quickly stopping. Maybe 6 feet wide and a hundred feet long, max. Probably not enough to bury someone (although such a burial has happened)
snowslide -- max of 50 yards and distance of a half mile. Usually dangerous.
avalanche -- bigger than a snowslide. Can easily destroy buildings and deadly.
I have heard that the early Silverton miners, from the Tyrol and other mountainous parts of Italy and Austria, also distinguished between snowslides and avalanches. The latter being extreme events.
No doubt other people have other distinctions between the terms.