Rio Grande engineer Eldon Morgan (happy news)

Jeff Stebbins called last night about the date for the work train that 483 ran from Alamosa to Phantom Curve with a flatcar w/bulldozer, a box car of company equipment, and a caboose to clear up a slide. He is scanning slides from that run for a get-together with engineer Eldon Morgan in Alamosa. I was very happy to hear that at age 95 Eldon is still well enough to travel from Colorado Springs to Alamosa for the get-together. I think that many of us curmudgeons have happy memories involving Eldon. He was instrumental in saving records of the narrow gauge, such as the Chama engine dispatch log, that would have ended up on the burn pile otherwise. And yes, Eldon was the engineer on the work train and the date was August 19, 1968, nine days before 483 and 484 left Alamosa with the last westbound narrow gauge freight. Jeff Stebbins thinks that he was the only person to chase the 483 work train. It would be fun to see some of his scanned slides of that event eventually.

Eldon Morgan giving 493 some TLC on December 6, 1967





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2020 03:36PM by Olaf Rasmussen.