In 1961, as a graduation gift, my dad treated me to a Pullman ride to Colorado Springs on the Denver Zephyr. We changed to a Trailways bus for Alamosa with a pair of tickets in hand for a three-day Rocky Mountan RR Club Memorial Day Excursion to Durango and Silverton. Now I gotten copies of the Narrow Gauge News for years and had even written Robert W. Richardson a few times with questions, so I was I was somewhat familiar with the DRGW's operations. But I wasn't prepared for the thrill of seeing and riding the narrow gauge in person. Nor, as an easterner, was I prepared for the scope and grandeur of the scenery.
Here are some random memories of the trip:
The chili they served in the baggage car in the center of the train was great, as was the luncheon at Silverton's Imperial Hotel. Then there was the stop for water at Gato, when the entire passenger compliment descended on a little store across from the tracks. I think the proprietor sold more candy and snacks in a half-hour than he did all the rest of the year. Someone asked if I noticed that canned goods on the shelf were all small sizes. I was told many of the locals didn't have power for refrigeration and needed to eat canned foods in one sitting since they couldn't be stored. I don't know if that was true or not, but it sounded logical. At Chama when the helper engine was being added, I walked looked around the depot and recall spotting the waybills for the crude oil traffic awaiting the conductor of the next freight in a rack by the door. I asked the agent if livestock was still being handled. He said some sheep moved by rail, but "nothing west of Lumberton." West of town there were several loads of lumber on flats at the sawmill, but those and a couple of gons of coal at Monero were pretty much it for freight activity. I don't recall seeing anything at Lumberton, Florida Gato or anyplace east of Carbon Jct.
At Osier, I spotted a couple of cowboys on horseback down in the valley rounding up stray cattle. I thought,"Boy this really
is the wild west." The day after we arrived back at Alamosa, we saw a long pipe train ready to head west. That was the only freight train we saw in the three days on the line, although admittedly it was a holiday weekend.
The excursion riders had free run of yards and engine houses. No one seemed to care where we went...except at Monero. On the eastbound trip, the train paused for a photo runby at the little coal mining town. A number of us climbed a large pile that seemed to be slack coal in order to get a good vantage point. An old gentleman came running out, yelling in Spanish. Someone who understood what he was saying told us to get off the pile. The old fellow was telling us that the apparently solid pile was actually burning deep inside. If we had broken through the outside crust, we could have been severely burned or even killed.
I've probably rambled on too long on this, but it was a great first introduction to the narrow gauge.
