Re: Alamosa February 15 1945

Quote
George Pearce
Interesting activities up at Monarch Pass! It's fun trying to outguess the trainmaster, so here goes. Why did he take 495 off the eastbound from Gunnison and put 491 on. That meant that all the checks associated with tying an engine onto a train had to be carried out. Then, when 495 and 499 arrived at Monarch, they both had to sit there waiting for 497/491 to show up.

Why didn't he just leave 497 and 495 tied together to haul the flanger and first cut up to the top. There, 497 could have cut off and continued on to Salida right away, and 495 and the flanger could have waited. Then, when 499 and 491 arrived, 495 and the flanger could have gone back down the hill right away. 499 could have cut off to turn around and let 491 gather up the first part of the train to continue on to Salida. Then 499 could turn and head back down the hill.

I'm sure there is a good reason why it wasn't done this way. What would that reason be?

The reason for the engine trade was to meet inspection requirements. I don’t have the exact specifics at hand but locomotives were required to go through a shop inspection after a certain amount of time or after running a certain number of miles. This could be seen by another example. Engine 498 was the so called “assigned” Crested Butte power. Every so often it would show up on an eastbound train out of Gunnison for Salida. It would return to Gunnison a few days later on a westbound train. Again, this to meet certain inspection requirements.

As for the train movements: Engine 497 and crew were the road engine/crew and were in charge of moving the train from Gunnison to Salida and therefore could not run light from Marshall Pass to Salida. Emergencies, of course, would be an exception. Additionally, in this case, the road crew would not handle the flanger by contract agreement.

Jimmy