John you must have been standing over on the highway near where I was. That was the "Chase Train" that ran on day 2. We bought a ticket and my brother Randy rode. One of those guys with a tripod is him with a video outfit. I got all this on tape from the highway, and the drift before the highway was pretty good as I recall.
A couple of comments. That was the first year the Rotary had run since 1983. I found out about it by accident. In April we chased the Union Pacific 844 and 3985 from Cheyenne to Salt Lake City, then 3985 ran two trips from SLC to McCammon, Idaho, which we did. We then headed for Los Angeles to chase the 3751, since it too was going to Sacramento for Railfair 91(like the UP train).
My contact there told me it had been scratched, but we should still come and shoot some stuff. As an afterthought he mentioned something about the C&TS running a rotary. I had to ask him to repeat that. I called my brother in Ohio, and he got the info and a seat on the escort train for day 2. We spent a couple of weeks in California and Arizona before heading for Chama on the way back to Ohio. I had shot several snow plow runs in Canada in 1987 and 1988 and they were pretty spectacular. The Rotary was every bit as spectacular even though it was much slow. In 1991 they used 487 and 488, so you had 4 points of interest. Smoke from two engine stacks, smoke from the rotary, and the snow being thrown out one side. Pretty neat and one of the best things I ever shot at the time.
They got to Cumbers the first day, and they cleared the wye and siding before calling it a day. In the morning the 488 took the escort passenger train out of Chama. The night before had been a banquet at either Vera's or Fosters, and we did not attend since we were beat from shooting all day. The next morning people were getting sick, plus the 488 got somewhat wedged in a snow tunnel near Windy point. People were running for the trees since the toilets were clogged, etc. 487 had stayed with the 0Y at Cumbres and was backed down to help 488 up to Cumbres. This made for some interesting video with what sorta looked like a mid-train helper (487 still had the outfit cars behind it).
The shot John had above was the first real chance the customers had to photograph the OY from the ground. As I recall they detrained on the upper section, and walked down to shoot the plowing, then the escort train came down to get them. Most of the rest of day was spent following OY and shooting from the open gondola or coach windows. They did another runby down by an old snow fence west of Los Pinos tank, and afterwards they watched the Rotary from across the loop at Los Pinos, and later backed to Cumbres and headed to Chama. The rotary was out of sight by this time having left the valley headed for Osier.
The first scene in this preview below, is where John and I shot the OY from the highway, below Tanglefoot. Good times! Would like to hear the info from Earl or John Bush on this one. I first met John on this trip and he was kind enough to do a walk through the Rotary with me, which we did after the run, and just before we headed for Ohio.
Greg Scholl
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www.gregschollvideo.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2019 08:05AM by Greg Scholl.