More to the story behind the photo

Now that I think about, we were in a motel north of time along 550 someplace, and were in bed when I heard the whistle. I looked out the window and saw smoke in the distance. I think it was 6:15-6:30 am, and I knew the first train didn't leave until about 7:30-8:00. So we got dressed quickly and headed north. We caught-up to the culprit about 2 miles from Hermosa, in time to get one shot in the still shadowed morning.
It was the 476 with a caboose hop to Hermosa. The backed into the siding and I believe picked up the 4 loaded EBT hoppers, and once ready, headed up the hill with their work train. The sun was up now, and I think we got a couple of nice shots.
Then the train backed down, as it was about half way to Rockwood from Hermosa where they were dumping the ballast(maybe that new siding up there). Anyway they backed into the siding, and started to load the ballast cars again. A bit later the first train to Silverton rolled by and they were still loading ballast. Am not 100% sure, but I think they made a second run, and backed into the siding to reload, and clear for the second train to roll by. It was probably the second or third run that I caught on the crossing. As I remember we shot 3 or 4 of the runs. In 1991, my brother was out there and saw 497 working the ballast trains. After a few runs up the hill, it finally took a work-train to Silverton.
I always find the work trains interesting, as its a bonus to the regular passenger runs. In 2014 when we were there, a work train was positioned in Rockwood, since it had just cleared a big slide about half-way to Silverton the day before. No steam on the work train though!
Greg