Re: “Son, It was your idea to be a railroader…” (the inside the cab story of #168’s incident)

I think Jeff's Maverick has over 300,000 miles on it but the odometer is broken so there's no way to tell...

Back to the story:

At this point Jeff was advised by Stathi that he needed to go back to Chama to get the #168 and come up to help the train to the top of the pass. Jeff told Stathi he wanted the #425 as the remaining K-36 was cold and the #425 had more tractive effort than the #168. We headed back to Chama where Jeff procured #425 and after cleaning the fire, watering, and coaling the locomotive, he sped back up the pass (at the fastest speed I have ever seen a C-18 make).

Jeff arrived back at Cresco with the #425. He was thinking that there was just enough time to couple on to the rear of the Eureka/Glenbrook consist and shove it up the hill in advance of the regular westbound passenger train which was due at Cumbres around 3:15 pm. When he arrived, he found that the Eureka had been broken from the consist and the decision had been made to allow the regular passenger train to pass by before the entire special was to be annulled and brought back to Chama. The regular passenger train arrived at Cresco around 3:30 pm and after that the special train began the task of backing slowly to Chama. The coaches and #425 were needed for the 5 pm departure and 10 pm return of the dinner train.

Jeff reading his orders and contemplating a plan of action (no time to put on the proper "uniform" for this run):


#425 being prepped for the "Mad Dash" to rescue the Eureka/Glenbrook train


#425 arrives at Cresco Siding with Jeff in charge:


#487 arrives at Cresco with the Chama bound passenger train with engineer Marvin Casias.


The gentleman standing on the right is Jerry Hanford who runs the Redwood Valley Railroad in Tilden Park, CA.

To be continued...