Narrow Gauge Adventures in Winter - 1964 (4 of 4)

Since it will be a while before I am able to post the April 16, 1964, narrow gauge chase, # 3 of "Desperate Narrow gauge Adventures in Winter - 1964", I will just post this photo of 484 and 488 turning on the Chama wye on April 16 for now, and then go on to # 4 of late December 1964.



After the winter of 1964 I got a summer job working for Mobil Oil at Kermit, Texas, and the desperate nature of my penniless narrow gauge trips turned a lot more mellow. Getting access to my parent's worn out 1949 Mercury also made a huge difference in the summer of 1964, so there were some excellent summer season adventures, such as chasing this revenue Cumbres turn



or pacing 488 at 30 mph with the Illini excursion ( I never used that Agfa box camera again after the Illini pace, but the slow shutter speed did work out on this occasion)



Although the Alamosa refinery shut down in September 1964, ending the oil shipments from Chama, narrow gauge freights continued to operate on a regular basis in October and November. A lot of snow came down in November, and the snow situation became even more difficult in December. But for me and friends all that snow offered a welcome opportunity for chasing steam in the snow during the upcoming Christmas - New Years break.

The narrow gauge was having a pretty tough time just before Christmas. On Wednesday, December 23, 498 and 488 brought a freight from Alamosa to Chama, and 493 and 478 brought a freight from Durango to Chama. 478 was en route to Alamosa for winter work in the Alamosa shops.

On Thursday, December 24, 498 took the westbound loads to Durango, and 488, 493 and 478 , called for 8:45 am, started for Alamosa . The three engines were unable to bust through the snow and finally returned to Chama. After setting out their train, and a rest period, the crews were called again for 8:00 pm and left Chama with a flanger outfit. This time they were able to break through and reached Alamosa some time on Christmas Day, December 25.

On Monday, December 28, 1964 the Rio Grande tried again. A 2-engine flanger-spreader outfit left Alamosa, followed by a 2-engine freight.

Having made the appropriate phone calls this time, Joe Forsyth, his son, and I made plans to drive to Chama and to meet the trains there on Monday night. Joe and son left Las Cruces in their tan VW beetle in the morning and picked me up at my parents' house in Alamogordo. Driving north via Corona and Estancia we arrived in Santa Fe in the afternoon. Joe wanted to visit friends in Santa Fe, and we ended up having dinner in their house. It was pretty much dark by the time we left Santa Fe and passed thru Espanola. As we were driving north of Espanola, Joe remarked that the headlights seemed not as bright as they should be, and wondered if they were gradually getting dimmer. His son got the light meter out and checked the brightness of the dome light. 5 or 10 minutes later he checked again, and the dome light produced a significant dimmer reading. It was pretty obvious that the generator was not charging and continuing to Chama was not a viable idea. So we turned back toward Espanola, first dimming the headlights from high beams to low beams. As the low beams started getting dimmer and dimmer, the engine started running roughly. So we turned the headlights off and ran with the parking lights only. Luckily there was absolutely no traffic. After a few more miles the engine started sputtering again, so we turned off the parking lights and we managed to get some additional distance in the near darkness. Espanola lies in the Rio Grande valley and the last stretch of the road is downhill. In an almost unbelievable repeat of the February 15 experience, the engine died as we were on the downhill stretch. We could see Espanola ahead and there were getting to be lights here and there. Still no traffic. Finally we coasted down the last stretch into the edge of Espanola into an open gas station. This is a true story - nobody could make this up. The gas station had no facilities or parts to replace the generator, but we got the battery recharged, and drove to Joe's friends' house in Santa Fe to spend the night. In the morning we took the car to the Santa Fe VW dealer and replaced the failed generator. By then it was mid-day and we figured that there was no point in driving to Chama, so it was back to Alamogordo and Las Cruces.

The one savings grace was seeing four Santa Fe F units moving a number of tank cars on what was left of the old New Mexico Central Railroad from the Santa Fe mainline at Willard to Moriarty via Estancia. Moriarty had a huge truck stop on Interstate 40 that received fuel by rail. This was one of only two times that I ever saw a train moving on this now long-abandoned branch line (at one time the New Mexico Central met the Chili Line at Santa Fe).

It turned out that we would not have found any narrow gauge activity at Chama if we had been able to go all the way. The two trains from Alamosa made it to the vicinity of Osier on Monday. Details are scarce, but as I remember, the freight returned to Alamosa on Tuesday, December 29. How they did it is something Jimmy Blouch might be able to shed some light on. The engines would have had to back from Osier to Big Horn before being able to turn. I don't know if the flanger spreader engines preceded the freight to Big Horn, or if they continued to plow toward Cumbres on December 29. In any event, the flanger-spreader outfit finally gave up and headed back to Alamosa on Wednesday, December 30, arriving before dawn on Thursday, December 31 in Alamosa. This was the last narrow gauge operation out of Alamosa for the rest of the winter.

After the 3-day New Years Weekend, 498 left Chama on Tuesday, January 5, 1965, bound for Durango. I don't know if 498 had come to Chama on December 28 to meet the westbound freight, or if the engine had come on January 4 to take any eastbound loads back to Durango for re-loading on Rio Grande Motorways.

Finally, on May 20, freight operations resumed with 487, 488, and 492 starting the first freight cycle of 1965.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2021 08:30AM by Olaf Rasmussen.