Re: Alamosa August 22, 1961

Jeff Terry Wrote:
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> Dick Thompson photographed both 483 and 484
> live at Alamosa on the morning of Aug. 22, 1961.
> There are no photos of a freight train leaving
> town so I'm not sure what's going on here. Does
> anyone know if they were being prepared to go
> out of town or if they had just arrived?  Both
> locomotives were serviced and there are shots
> of them on the turntable. There is another slide
> showing the pipe loads by the water tower that
> states that they were not scheduled to go out
> until later in the week.

Jeff Terry {also} Wrote:
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> Found this shot showing the crew.  Still inter-
> ested in finding out who the crew was and how
> far the train went that day.


Your first & third shots were clearly taken in the morning, Jeff – as the tenders are fully lit from behind,* and all shadows are to the west-northwest.

IIRC, by the early sixties the intensity of traffic to Farmington had eased somewhat and fright operations on the narrow gauge were no longer 24/7.  The usual schedule in the early sixties was for trains to run to Chama from Alamosa & Durango on Mondays & Thursdays, for the Durango crews to take a train west from Chama on Tuesdays & Fridays, and then deliver loads to Farmington & pick up empties on Wednesdays & Saturdays.  Meanwhile – depending on how much was moving east, the crew from Alamosa would make one or two turns from Chama to Cumbres on Tuesdays & Fridays, and then a third train from Chama to Cumbres on Wednesdays & Saturdays that would couple everything together (up to 70 cars!)** and then follow the helper – which was run light – to Alamosa.  If eastbound traffic wasn't too heavy, there would be a single Cumbres Turn on Tuesday or Friday morning, and the afternoon train would gather everything together and continue on to Alamosa.  There would usually be no freight action on Sundays.

Since August 22, 1961 was a Tuesday, maybe traffic was light and the usual Monday trains to Chama were postponed by a day?  We'll probably never know why, but Earl's post (below) clearly indicates westbound trains from Alamosa to Chama on Tuesday, August 22 and Thursday, August 24 that week.

- Roosso

  *  For another early-morning shot of the Red Devil loader in Alamosa, see the second photo on [ngdiscussion.net].
**  See John West's beautiful photo of a long eastbound train at Los Pinos on his site at [chasingtrains.smugmug.com].



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2017 07:36PM by Russo Loco.