Re: Desperate Narrow Gauge Adventures in Winter - 1964 (1 of 4)

The train crew was called for 2:45 pm for the afternoon Cumbres turn, but before making up their train, engineer Ken Faucette was busy jockeying back and forth with engine 488 separating out idler flat cars between open end gons to make them available for lumber loading by the Skyline mill. So even though I was on foot, I was able to watch a good deal of narrow gauge steam action. By the time the second Cumbres turn was ready for departure, it was getting into the later part of the afternoon. I didn't want the steam action to end, so instead of walking ahead for a last photo of the day, I made a last minute decision to climb on to an open end gon and to ride a couple of miles up the line, and then to hop off and walk back. As it worked out, on the first part of the ride the train was moving too fast to safely jump off, and then it got too interesting not to stay on a little longer. After the train had crossed over the Lobato bridge the train was moving at a pretty moderate speed, and I started looking seriously for a good place to jump off.





I was starting to worry about the long walk back. Just as I was looking for a good snow bank to jump into, I glanced up to the left and saw Frank Barry standing on top of one of the rocky spikes above Dalton. So I jumped, and took this photo of helper 488 as the train moved past.



I then joined Frank and we continued the chase in Frank's VW. frank had managed to finish work early and decided to follow the Cumbres turn. We were able to get ahead of the train at the next dirt road crossing (about half a mile above the current crossing), and took these photos in beautiful low angle light.



Here is Frank's photo of 480 taken as he was standing next to me. The photo appeared in a British book entitled "Round the World on the Narrow gauge" by BP Whitehouse and PC Allen. Okay, master photographer Frank Barry's photo is better than mine, but I still have some wonderful memories of that late afternoon.



( to be continued)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2021 10:46AM by Olaf Rasmussen.