Re: C&TS Triple Headed Passenger Trains

Once all the steel cars were on line, 18 cars (455 tons) was all two big engines could get up the hill. Anything more than that required a third engine. We ran a lot of trains in the 20-25 car range.

Longest train we ever ran was on Columbus Day 1997 when B.Bart gave a trainload of tickets to the local schools. That day 489, 487 & 497 slugged it out with 31 cars (over 700 tons). It had snowed the day before, it was cold. I told everyone involved it was a BAD idea. But G.Bart never would listen to me. I didn't run that day. I knew what was going to happen and watched, took pics and made sound recordings. I highly suggested to them they get water at Cresco. 487 had real bad valve rings and was drinking a lot of water. We had nearly boned out the tender once before on a heavy train a week or two before. When they highballed the tank, I went up to the straight above Coxo Crossing to watch the story unfold before my eyes, camera lens and recorder microphones.

The 3 of them came slogging up the hill at about 6 mph. Right in front of me 497 went into a slipping fit and the whole works stalled. After a few minutes of getting their act together, they got started, moved about 100 feet, 497 stubbed it's toe, slipped and they stalled again.

At this point 487's tender got sucked dry. No more water. When asked why he didn't get water at Cresco, the engineer's response was he had 1/3 of a tank (Cresco is only slightly more than 1/2 way). He also didn't understand why he couldn't get the injector to work as he had a foot of water in the tank - he could see it through the hatch. I had to explain the geometry of a tender on a 4% grade is about 1 foot higher in the front than the rear. So, with the water slowly going down in the glass, they muscled the train up to Coxo, tied down 31 cars, cut the engines off and with 489 and 497 as power, they hauled 487 up the hill to get water, came back down, coupled up, untied 31 cars of hand brakes, did an air test, and headed for Cumbres. By the time they got to Cumbres they were over 2-1/2 hours late. The school kids in the box car coaches on the rear brought their own lunch, the paying passengers were starving. I made the executive decision to cut the box cars off here and take them back to Chama with one helper, and sent the rest of the train on its way.

The best part were the awesome audio recordings I got.