Rich Muth Wrote:
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> I understand that the reason the RR went to Lava
> was because the locos at the time only held 2500
> gallons of Agua and they couldn't make it all the
> way to Sublette. Topographically the RR could have
> right up the mesa directly west of Antonito but
> there was no water available up there. That added
> an extra seven miles of track to the line.
>
> There wasn't a reliable source of water at the
> Big Horn section house site. This cistern was
> built there to provide domestic water:
>
>
>
> The middle level of Whiplash track is just above
> the cistern.
>
> Rich
Most of the reason for going out through Lava was to keep the grade to a maximum of 1.42%. I once figured that the railroad could have run straight up the draw from Furgeson's Trestle and tied into the existing mainline at the top of the Whilplash. Only trouble was is was an average grade of 2.8%.
Years ago I ran a charter freight with 487 west with somewhere around 23 cars. We ran out of water backing into the siding at Big Horn. I got the injector to start again and filled the boiler to the top. We headed east and the injector finally gave up for good near the crossing at MP 302.5. We cut off from the train and shuffled off to Sublette to get water. Another big Charter train had 35 cars (5 loaded with ballast) and 2 engines. I was on 497 and when through all but about 2 feet of water getting to Sublette. Of course, doing all those full throttle runbys (sometimes multiple times) uses a lot of water.
From what I've seen, heard and bee told. The westbounds worked pretty hard with the heavy trains, but no quite as hard as they did up Cumbres. Freights frequently stopped for Water at Lava. Once you get beyond Big Horn, the grade begins to stairstep. The curves around the ends of the canons is pretty level, and between the curves, are the harder pulls. So, there is bit of a break in the work.
- It's all Relative ... 
