September 27, 2020 08:43PM
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Registered: 16 years ago
Posts: 5,644
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Even though John Norwood wasn't a fan on the narrow gauge, his books do give a lot of insight about how the railroad was operated and many of the characters that made up the human side of railroading. Guys like conductor Alva Lions who acted as a goodwill ambassador on the Silverton branch who was instrumental in boosting ridership to such levels that the Rio Grande was not allowed to abandon the branch when they applied to the ICC. I'm sure that his employer was less than thrilled about his efforts increasing the passenger count so they were making a profit. Jackson Thode was another company man who only revealed his inner foamer after he retired and both men brought a lot of history to share with us in their books.
Terry Ross tells me that when the states bought the CATS line the guys in the Alamosa shop gave them lots of supplies like bearing brasses and brake shoes, and tools like the Alamite grease guns needed as well as two filled gons full of rock to repair the line. Some of the professional railroaders where astounding at how hard those early volunteers were willing to work for free just so that the railroad would live. Terry said when they moved the first batch of cars to the narrow gauge they really didn't think those G%# D@#* Railfans would get all those cars moved.
Guys like Ben Greathouse, Sid McKinney came forward to run locomotives and without their help most of the moving of equipment would have never happened. Ben had already retired when he started working with the volunteers, and Sid was just driving through Chama on vacation when he discovered the CATS and stopped in to see if he could help. He ended up spending the summer.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2020 08:30AM by John Cole.
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