Re: Memories of 1744

Creating a reasonable freight consist was a bit of challenge as we had no vintage rolling stock. I scoured the yard looking of possible candidates and ended up with a San Luis Central reefer, a couple of open hoppers from Colorado Lava down in Antonito, the only Rio Grande hopper I could find with decent lettering and no graffiti, a short cement hopper and an open gon. Not a great consist, but the best I could come up with..


The second tunnel was always an adventure. The grade is a full 3% here and 1744 had not choice but to attack it every trip wide open with all she had. The steel structure in not really a tunnel portal. It is a frame work whose sole purpose is to keep rocks from falling out of the ceiling onto the track. However there is no structure in the middle of the tunnel. Throughout the summer 1744's thunderous exhaust would knock pieces of rock loose, Many times they landed on the cab roof with a terrific BANG. One day there was a crash in front of my seat, when we came out of the tunnel, I was staring at broken glass and shattered wood. A head-sized rock had come down and made a direct hit on the cab door. The usual practice was to close all the windows and doors, put your head down, take a big deep breath.......and wait for it to be over. The first trips were really nasty as we were steam cleaning 50 years of diesel exhaust gunk off the ceiling.


The last day of the 2007 season, October 14, was also 1744's last trip over La Veta, and her last day under steam. The weather was appropriately cool and cloudy as we made our stop at the summit at Fir.


At La Veta, after turning and watering, getting ready to attack the hill one last time. We were very thankful for 1744's 10,000 gal tender. It allowed her to run all the way from Alamosa to La Veta on one tank of water. An important point as none of old water facilities were still in existence.


Just West of La Veta. With the throttle wide open and Johnson Bar hooked up as high as she would run, 1744 is making a hard (30+mph) run at the upcoming 3% climb to the summit of the Sangre de Christo range. You can see a snow storm working its way down the Middle Creek Valley. That is where we are headed.