Re: C&TS - Spring, 1982.

The next day, June 10, 1982, we were on duty at 730am in Chama and drove up to Cumbres. Marvin, Dale and a new hire trainman, Greg Stabolepsy (I think I spelled that right), drove over from Antonito and met us. While Marv and Dale cleaned up 488’s fire Gary, Greg and I figured out the plan for the day. Shortly after 488 was ready to go, the semi trucks showed up with the bags of concrete to be loaded on the flats. This took quite a while to accomplish, as the cars were loaded on the highway crossing and we had to regularly clear the crossing so traffic could get by. It was well after noon before we got the train together and some bad air leaks fixed, along with a sticky triple valve that insisted on dynamiting every time we set the air, and other such fun stuff. We finally got out of Cumbres at 150pm and headed down the hill toward Antonito.

Here, 488 sits waiting for another car to be loaded and a signal to back and clear the crossing. I see in this picture that I need to correct the consist we had: there were 3 6500 class flats plus wooden flat 6314 which is coupled to 488 in this shot.


Underway, rounding Tanglefoot Curve. You can see 6314 is the 4th car back.


Dave Peterson was about that morning and caught us drifting over Cumbres Creek.



….and a mile further down by MP 328. The guys riding the flats are not railroad employees. They were employees of the contractor doing the work at Mud Tunnel.


I failed the other unwritten rule about going on work trains….Always take lots of film. Sadly, this shot is the 38th on the roll as we crossed Cascade Creek.


We got to Osier, ran around the train, then set the Souvenir Car into the coal ramp spur, where it was to live for the summer. Ran back around the train, coupled up and departed at 320pm. We got down to Mud Tunnel – Toltec area a hour later and spent an insane amount of time doing something that I didn’t note. We might had waited for some of the sacks of cement to be unloaded at Mud Tunnel, so some such thing. At any rate, we set out the 4 flats but didn't depart Toltec until 730pm.
As we didn’t worry about Hours of Service stuff back then, we pressed on into the ever darkening sky, past Big Horn at 810pm and finally rolled into Antonito at 1100pm. We set the train out, tied the locomotive up and Gary and I drove home, getting back to Chama shortly after midnight.

Stay Tuned for the next thrilling episode – “The Battle of Mud Tunnel”.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2017 08:25PM by Earl.