Re: #315 on Sept. 27, 2009 (part 3)

Hi, Greg -

1) SFAIK, the tail of the wye is in pretty good shape, at least for cars. Last year
one of Jay's fairly long excursions was backed into the wye to allow the regular
passenger train to pass, but I doubt that an engine would be run very far onto
the tail - probably just far enough to clear the points so that the switch could be
thrown. Both switches have been gone from the passing siding for quite a while.

2) IIRC, there were three cabooses for two reasons -
a. They had hoped to sell several more tickets. There were just over 20 paying customers, with room for another six to eight - which would have made the trip profitable instead of roughly break-even.
b. They wanted to allow riders in the first caboose a good look down into the cab of #315, as had been done on some previous D&RGW and RGS excursions.

3) I'm not very knowledgeable about flags, other than white vs green.

4) Thanks! In my youth I used to scramble pretty far up the cliffs to get a better - or at least a different - perspective. These days I'm a lot more cautious, but luckily I'm still able - and willing - to hike a bit to get a better view.

- Russ