Re: “Son, It was your idea to be a railroader…” (the inside the cab story of #168’s incident) 
| September 18, 2021 11:34AM |
Continuing with our story:
About 45 minutes after we arrived at Cumbres, the decision was made to send #168 down light with Jeff as he was scheduled to work the next day out of Antonito. Jeff had never run the #168 before, but with a little tutoring by Jeremy (who mentioned that the #168 didn’t seem to be running well this trip) and Dylan, the #168 was ready to depart Cumbres around 12 am just as the last quarter moon was rising. As I was Jeff’s ride home to Taos, I was offered a ride down with the engine.
#168 backhead
Jeff bringing us down the hill:
View out of the cab:
(sorry it's blurry, it was the best my cell phone would do...)
The #168 seemed to give a little harsher ride than the #480’s, but it has also been 20 years since I spent any quality time in the cab of a locomotive on the C&TS. Cab visibility was good and the loco appeared to use more water than a 480 (probably due to the smaller boiler size meaning a greater percent of the steam was needed to run the air pump). The fire door is the chain style meaning you jerked on a chain to open and close it.
For the first hour, the ride down Cumbres was uneventful. Jeff figured out the straight air engine brake and Dylan & I assisted him by looking out for elk and cows on the grade (black cows look like big shadows at night). With the rising moon, the ride was quite beautiful. It was a pretty neat time machine experience…
To be continued...
About 45 minutes after we arrived at Cumbres, the decision was made to send #168 down light with Jeff as he was scheduled to work the next day out of Antonito. Jeff had never run the #168 before, but with a little tutoring by Jeremy (who mentioned that the #168 didn’t seem to be running well this trip) and Dylan, the #168 was ready to depart Cumbres around 12 am just as the last quarter moon was rising. As I was Jeff’s ride home to Taos, I was offered a ride down with the engine.
#168 backhead
Jeff bringing us down the hill:
View out of the cab:
(sorry it's blurry, it was the best my cell phone would do...)
The #168 seemed to give a little harsher ride than the #480’s, but it has also been 20 years since I spent any quality time in the cab of a locomotive on the C&TS. Cab visibility was good and the loco appeared to use more water than a 480 (probably due to the smaller boiler size meaning a greater percent of the steam was needed to run the air pump). The fire door is the chain style meaning you jerked on a chain to open and close it.
For the first hour, the ride down Cumbres was uneventful. Jeff figured out the straight air engine brake and Dylan & I assisted him by looking out for elk and cows on the grade (black cows look like big shadows at night). With the rising moon, the ride was quite beautiful. It was a pretty neat time machine experience…
To be continued...
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488 stops for water at Los Pinos tank on closing day Oct. 1979. Photo courtesy Don Richter
The NGDF was started by Don Richter and is currently operated in his memory by Nathan Holmes and others. Others who have contributed to the upkeep of this board are (in no particular order): Charles McCandless, Everett Lueck, Ted Wilton, Cole Adams, James Bane, John Moellmer, Jon Bentz, Linn Moedinger, lloyd lehrer, Rod Jensen, John Craft, Steven Forney, Herb Kelsey, Bill Ramaley, Russ Sperry (El Russo Loco), Josh McNeal, John West, Jim Armstrong, Bob Bergstrom, Greg Scholl, Blake Forbes Doug van Veelen and Mark Fuller.