Do you have dates of all these trips? I once sent Earl copies of our footage and the way it worked out, the 478 trip to Farmington we shot was the FIRST loads to Farmington for the season. We could not get there any sooner because my brother and I were in school at the time, and we did not get out until Memorial Day, then we departed for Colorado right away.
We found that the next NG move would be the Durango to Farmington run so we headed out to Durango first. Kinda did the 3 days backwards from the way most would do it starting in Alamosa.
After doing a three day stint on the NG, we tried to get another run, but Alamosa said they were not sure when something would operate. Dad decided to kill some time so we went off to El Paso to see streetcars, Belen Roundhouse to see the last Sante Fe Steamers, etc. After a week he called again and still no definite date, so we decided to head home. A few days later the third train of the season left Alamosa for Chama.
So in early June we shot the end of the first loads going to Farmington. First EB train from Durango(498), I assume the first EB out of Chama(after 493 and 483 had brought the second loaded train to Chama the day before) back to Alamosa.
The so called Mad Dash first run is interesting also, in that there was no return working back to Alamosa that time, since the engines and train were all headed through to Durango. So, I guess the one we got over Cumbres out of Chama was the first such train of 1968. Its also interesting to note that that consist was not the cars brought east from Durango the day before. This makes sense because the cars that went east were mainly empty pipe cars, which would be needed for future runs, while the box cars from Durango could wait.
Greg Scholl