Re: Exactly what is it that makes YOU,love the D&RGW narrow gauge?

I grew up in Santa Fe country around San Diego (El Cajon, actually) but my dad's family lived in Denver. We had made several trips to Denver in the '50s but all via I-70. I had an old Trains magazine from '54 that told the story of RGS tenwheeler No. 20 and said that it was in a museum at Alamosa, Colorado, so in 1959 we took the southern route to Denver via Alamosa, not knowing that the Narrow Gauge Motel's equipment had gone to Golden. I didn't know narrow gauge from squat but as we were driving along next to the right of way north of Antonito I could swear there was a 3rd rail in that track just like my old Lionel trains! When we got into Alamosa we discovered the lack of trains at the motel but the obvious smoke from steam engines was too much for my dad to pass by and we ended up driving into the Alamosa shops. 489 was hot and on the turntable. We got out of the car to take a look and the foreman walked over to see what we wanted there. He noticed our license plate frame said we'd bought our Chevy in El Cajon and he just happened to have a sister who lived there. He gave us the run of the place and I got to climb on dead engines and watch the 489 get turned and shuffle off through the yards.

Flying Rio Grande's and steam engines were from thenceforth etched onto my 14 year-old consciousness!

A repeat trip in 1960 to ride the Silverton train with behind the 476 combined with a copy of Narrow Gauge in the Rockies and Mobile Fidelity's "Rio Grande To Silverton" record album and it was all over but the shouting! At the age of 15 I was handlaying HOn3 track!

Even though my historical and modeling efforts mainly centered on the Rio Grande Southern, the D&RGW and its operating narrow gauge lines are what hooked me in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2009 11:27PM by Herb Kelsey.