Thinking back at the resource material we had back then, I'm suprised we were found anything. The only books we had were Mal's Silver San Juan, and Josie Crum's book. Ernie Robart's map in the back of Silver San Juan was a godsend for trying to figure out where the railroad ran. I hated the idea of dragging it out and tearing it up while exploring, but heck, back then finding a place to copy something was a chore. You had to go to a library and pay 10 cents a page to copy something...Jeeze. To add to my frustration, I was all of 17 years old. My dad was a NG fan but he simply was not going to take his BRAND NEW 1976 Ford station wagon down a jeep road.... So when when we got to places like Trout Lake and saw the grade from the trestle enticingly climbing away toward Lizard Head I could only sigh and say "some day...." It was 4 more years before I would buy my Jeep and be able to conquer unimproved railroad grades....

Back to the chase.

Here we are up at Pandora. Idarado Mine was still in business back then. A spur track went into the building where the pointy-shaped door is.


From here it was back down to Vance Jct. This was as much off-roading as Dad was going to allow. Here we are at Illium, the wye for Vance Jct. The road used one leg of the wye over the San Miguel River. While this bridge might have been reworked, it sat on the original abutments, and probably looked the same, the bridge for the other leg was gone. Here Dad is re-arranging the luggage in the wagon while my little brother and I troop off to Vance Jct.


Vance Jct. was more or less un-molested in 1976, the only thing missing was the track and the depot building that was used as the section house. Here is the coach body that was used as the depot office. Don't get too close or lean on it.....


As I mentioned the depot building itself was gone. RGS depots tended to have a high mortality rate, disappearing soon after abandonment. My guess was the new property owners didn't want to pay taxes on improvements like buildings, so they had them torn down. He is the empty spot where the station stood.


This boxcar body tool shed appears to be an early standard gauge car as it is too big for a narrow gauge car...