This is one of those trivia things that has bugged me ever since I obtained an audio recording of a D&RGW NG train in the early 60s. The recording is of a hill turn made from the cupola of a caboose coupled behind the rear helper #486. At Cumbres, after drifting downhill for awhile, they cut off the helper which then proceeds to do some minor switching which as the attached info sheet says is to couple jarringly into some gondolas on an adjacent track and from the conductor's words and the sounds of the train appears to be to shove the gons to the W. end of the yard where they will be picked up for the downhill trip (assume after helper is turned on the "Y"). I assume that these gons were dropped off by a previous Westbound freight and the 486 is going to do some MoW work at some bad track spots on the way down. I have also seen a picture of a helper and a couple of cars on its tender holding the main while the Eastbound train passes on Los Pinos siding. My question is what was the normal procedure at Cumbres. All I have read is that the 1st hill turn would drop its cars on one of the passing tracks (assume house track ) and the 2nd turn would couple the two sections into one train with the helper proceeding light ahead of the train to Alamosa. My questions include such things as: was the crossover track from house track to main used to let the helper onto the main from the 1st section, could the road engine alone back one of the sections upgrade on the E. end to assemble the train, was switching required to change the train configuration since upgrade pulling and downgrade braking may have required different load distributions, how did rear helper runaround if cars with MoW stuff or just overtonnage for downhill braking were left on N. passing track if indeed that was the normal place to leave them, was the station operator responsible for lining the W. switch, why would a helper be holding the main at Los Pinos with a couple of cars? Just trying to picture these operations.
