Recollection of Marshall Pass

I am reading a book I used to look at frequently when I was younger living in Gunnison. Since the book is now out of print, I luckily came across a copy a short time back and was able to obtain it. I thought I would post an excerpt as it has many interesting stories and accounts of the Marshall Pass line.
" The top of Marshall Pass is just a few feet under 11,000. You feel it in your breathing when you get that high. Up there at the top is a great long snowshed through which the tracks run, as through a tunnel.
Inside it is a small turn-table where the extra engines are turned around and sent back down to Salida. We had only one engine coming down the pass, and needed it only for the brakes. The throttle was never opened.
Engineer Frank Frantz was the one who brought us down. It was facinating to watch him work the air-brake lever. He didn't always put on ahead of a curve, where you'd think he would. He seemed to do it at odd moments without any plan or purpose.
But then I learned that what he was doing was an absolute art. He wasn't merely judging the track ahead. He was judging, out of his mind and experience, all the long train behind us, and all the unseen curves over which we in the engine had already passed. He was handling the whole train with almost the rythm of a crawling snake.
Engineers in this part of the world all have to be good "air men." That's the term used to designate their ability to handle a train smoothly on mountain grades with the air brakes. They say the best "air men" in America are right here on this narrow-gauge Marshall Pass division of the Denver & Rio Grande. My old hat is off to them."
I found it interesting that Engineer Frantz was mentioned. If anyone has ever seen "Rio Grande of the Rockies" he is shown in the 489 on a Monarch turn. Kinda neat to match a face to a name.
This was taken from an account by Ernie Pyle.
This was quoted from "Marshall Pass Gateway to the Gunnison Country," by Walter R. Borneman
Hope everyone finds this as interesting as I do.
Regards,
William