Re: TRAINS Winter Photo at Toltec Siding (etc.)

CharlieMcCandless Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The crew at Cumbres showed some veteran
> railroaders. Brakeman F.A. (Frank) Young went on
> to be the senior conductor out of Alamosa in the
> 1950s. He was the conductor on the westbound
> freight train stopped one winter night on Toltec
> siding for an eastbound. Harold Thane was the
> brakeman. IIRC Trains Magazine published the
> picture. I forget who the photographer was.


IIRC, that was Phillip R. Hastings, Charlie -

I still have that issue of TRAINS - April, 1956 - IMHO the best single issue Kalmbach ever published.  In addition to Hastings' superb piece on the D&RGW narrow gauge - 'Into the Freezing Darkness' - there was a great article covering a C&O 2-6-6-2 on a mine run and a beautiful two-page spread of winter- time photos of one of the last three-engine freights (three cab-forwards, that is) on S.P.'s Modoc line between Klamath Falls, Oregon and Sparks, Nevada.   Many years later when passing through Alturas, Ca., I tried to track down the photographer - hoping to purchase prints of those two photos - but couldn't find anyone name Tobisch in the phone book . . .    

- Gramps

p.s. Not that it matters much, but Hasting's spelled the brakeman's name as 'Thayne' in the article.  The caboose they rode that night was our old friend 0503, and on the return trip there was a caboose off the RGS being hauled to the Narrow Gauge Motel near Alamosa (where Hastings had spent the night before boarding the train).  Hastings also mentions getting a shave at the Shamrock Hotel, so I'll bet the current gift shop once featured a barber chair.  I'm assuming that the copyrights on a sixty year old magazine have long since expired, so here's the photo you were thinking of Charlie – one of several in that 8-page article that got me hooked on the narrow gauge more than sixty years ago:


I last saw a cab-forward in action drifting light downgrade from Dunsmuir to Redding in late August, 1955, so these two photos of a three-engine freight taken the following December have always stayed sharp in my memory:


My memory wasn't so sharp regarding the C&O 2-6-6-2, however. The article actually focused on the journey of two hopper cars 'from tipple to tidewater', and the mallet that hauled them from the mine down to the nearest yard played only a small part in the story:




Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2017 08:15PM by Russo Loco.