Low Water

Bill Holt told me about an experience he had once going west from Chama with the 484. It was morning, he said they had a full tonnage train for one locomotive. After a while, he got to talking with the fireman and glanced at the glass occasionally. After a few miles, he noticed the glass was still full, which was wrong. He reached over and opened the lowest try cock and got a blast of steam. They stopped and dropped the fire, fortunately just in time. Later, after 484 was towed back to Alamosa, they found out a boilermaker had left some kind of a brush in the boiler and it had somehow gotten lodged in the water glass intake.