We departed Ohio on Sept 7th, overnight in Salina, KS, nearly 800 miles.
I had not reservation for the 8th cause I did not know how far we would get, but had reservations the 9th-12th in Durango.
Monday it started to look like we might be able to make it to the C&TS, and I called the RR to see if they were running Engineer school trains that week, and was told they were. The Tuesday train would depart around 8 am. So we made a reservation in Chama, and then went to Antonito from Walsenburg and caught the train arriving from Chama around 4:30. It was kinda cloudy and breezy, but we got it at the last crossing west of town then hightailed it into the depot area to get it making the loop and passing the depot. Jake and Max were the crew and told me they would make a few pull ups to dump the restroom stuff, then would uncouple and back to the engine house, so we got that before heading off the Chama.
Tuesday the 9th, was mixed weather with a fair amount of clouds, but who cares when you have two trains attacking Cumbres Pass from Chama.
The engineer school train departed with 489 around 8 am, with Jeremy and Carlos as pilot engineers for the students. This train was headed all the way to Antonito. We did the usual shots including Jukes Tree, entering the narrows, the 4% by Lake Lobato, Dalton, 2nd crossing or S-curve, state line, and Perry's pond before heading for the summit. After the train took water and departed, we headed back to Chama, in time to get the regular train, again at Jukes Tree, and up to Cumbres.
By noon we were headed through Chama after grabbing some lunch on our way to Durango. In less than 4 hours we had bagged two trains working hard to get to Cumbres. Not a bad way to reward ourselves for 1400 miles of driving in two days.
Greg
