Re: Five engines in Chama

Yep that was quite a day. As I recall that was Friday of the second weekend. First I got a shot of 484 dragging in a newly recovered stock car from the end of track back to the yard. Then the 5 engines ran to the wye, turned and coupled together went over the crossing and back to the yard. In the afternoon we ran the 3-engine train. As I recall it was 484, and 487 up front, and 497 on the rear. We had a rider gon ahead of the 497 which made for some good fun. We did a runby above Lobato trestle(actually 2-3 of them). I rode the cupola of the caboose right behind 497 on one runby. Then we hopped a bus at the second crossing and rode to Coxo, where we hiked up to a nice vantage point for the great shot coming at us, then winding around Coxo and Windy point in the glinting sunshine. At Cumbres they split things up, and while most of the stuff went back to Chama, the 484 handled about 5-6 loaded gons with ballast. I caught this train at Apache Road crossing, and while not really part of the charter, it was a cool bonus, just like the morning stuff was.
Probably nowhere in America could something like this take place. Just wish the C&T was more appreciated and could get more revenue.

Greg

P.S. John Bush was the CMO at the time(1992)