NNG - SLRG's busy and "interesting" weekend.....

Sat 9/19 was again a record day on the RGS/SLRG with somewhere near 600 passengers. Michael Martin Murphey held a concert up at Fir and we were packed to capacity. The train out of Alamosa behind the 18 had 5 cars - 468 tons - which is close to her tonnage rating on the west side of the hill. At Fir we set out the lounge car to be a "portable bar" and continued on the La Veta with 5 cars. We picked up the lounge car and took it back to Alamosa that afternoon.


The next day was "one of those days". The new trainmaster ordered the La Veta - Alamosa train of 2 diesels and 4 passenger cars to to pick up 26 freight cars - 4 loads, 22 empties. They ran out of sand on the lead unit down near Occidental and crawled up the hill at 5mph. In the meanwhile, 18 arrived at Fir and ducked into the clear to wait. The diesel ground to a stall about 2.5 miles from Fir. Discussion ensued about taking the time to double the hill or sending #18 down to help. We decided the latter was the quickest solution. Adding to the mess was 18's pilot will not couple to a diesel with a plow in its front. So the diesel crew tied thier train down, ran up to Fir where we coupled into the rear of thier consist to go back down to the train. Here we are at Fir ready to head down to the stalled train:


Looking down on the stalled train...


Coupling up....


After a quick air test and knocking off the hand brakes, we were off. The front car was packed and the front vestibule was full of passengers wanting a earfull of #18 with her smokebox against the coach. I ripped the throttle wide open and waited for the 2 GE's to come to life. #18 gave forth a muffled "wooof" then broke loose with a resounding slip. If there was any doubt that #18 didn't mean business, that slip squashed that notion. Once underway and hooked up as high as she would run and still pull, we bombed up the hill at track speed. The curves made it pretty much impossible to get a shot of the train. Here we are rounding the final curve into Fir..


Here #18 has been cut out on of the train is in the siding at the west end of Fir. After the diesel train gets out of the way, we will run around to the east end and couple to the head of our train. After air test, it's off to La Veta, only 2 hours late....


Additional "fun" consisted on a dynamiter in our train. About every 2 miles, one of the cars would go into emergency application when a light brake application was made. This slowed us down even more. It was now obvious we could not get back to Alamosa with out exceeding 12 hours of service. On our return we were advised that a new crew would relive us between Ft. Garland and Blanca. Here we are stopped watching the sunset waiting for Carlos and Kevin to arrive...

We were only stopped a minute or two before the relief crew showed up. Carlos came all the way from ABQ to help, Kevin walked across the street from his apartment. Here is Carlos blasting off for Alamosa...


Into the Sunset....