Right On, Cole -
As stated elsewhere, IMHO the 40th Anniversary of the First C&TS Train Into Chama
on 09/06/70 will be a Celebration not only of the First 40 Years of the C&TS but also
the NEXT 40 Years of the C&TS - a time for ALL of us who care about the railroad to
re-dedicate ourselves to its preservation and future success.
The main reasons for emphasizing the Summer of Seventy Volunteers - and that includes the train crews of September and October as well as the track crews of June, July and August - are that
1) Other than a few key political figures - without whose efforts the railroad simply would not exist - these Volunteers have never been publicly recognized and thanked for their hard work and sacrifice, and
2) Time is running out to do so. Several of the hardest-working of the early Volunteers have already passed on, and the youngest of them is probably very close to sixty by now and several are much older.
The initial plan, discussed with Soni several months ago, was for the railroad to sponsor the re-enactment train and for as many of the Summer of Seventy Volunteers as could be located to be invited to ride free of charge. Soni's resignation, along with this year's very tight budget (now even tighter due to the trestle crisis) have combined to prevent this. In order for the train to run at all it was necessary for someone to charter it, and I agreed with Alan Loomis to do so. We determined that it would be necessary to sell about half of the available seats to sponsors, which reduced the space available to volunteers to about fifty seats. Preliminary estimates of the number of volunteers were as high as 100-plus, so I initially asked Ernie Robart for a list of just the June-July-August track crews. The final list he sent me - which is the one on [
ngdiscussion.net] - is much smaller than anticipated, so it is clear that there will be room for several members of the September & October train crews to be invited as well. In addition to names on the preliminary list, three or four others have been identified; on the down side it appears that more of the 1970 Volunteers have passed on than originally thought.
There is also some confusion as to whether the train crews of September and October were employees or Volunteers. Apparently the only person who received payment
from the Commission in those days was Eddie Martinez, a "Security Consultant" who served as the night watchman in Chama (and as the Conductor of Extra 483 East on October 16, on which I served as a volunteer brakeman). It also appears that a private individual - Earl Bell, a key member of Scenic Railways, Inc., the first operators of the C&TS - paid several people out of his own pocket to assist in the rehabilitation of the railroad; at least one of these - Richard Braden - stayed on with the railroad for some time, first as a locomotive fireman and very soon as an engineer.
With less than eight weeks to go until the August 30
th Re-Enactment / Tribute Train, time is running out to get the invitations in the mail in time for surviving Volunteers to make plans to attend; everyone's help in identifying and tracking down as many of them as possible is VERY MUCH appreciated!
- Russ Sperry
