Chama-Durango and other misc. stuff

Last week Kevin Bush and I made a trek from Chama to Durango along the abandoned ROW. I hadn't been out there for several years and it was a first time experience for Kevin. The paved road to nowhere from Dulce to Navajo did indeed cause 492 Rock to get moved around the curve to the east. It is still there though. Navajo Tank and the thru-truss bridge across the Navajo River are still there. Auto traffic now uses a new bridge. The tank has had some stabilization work done to it, paint, etc. about 3/4 of the tank bands were removed in the process.
The church in the ghost town of Juanita is gone now.
Gato looks very sad. Losing the Gomez store and wherehouse took away much of the out-of-the-past appeal. The water tank is on verge of collapsing. A section of the tank about 10 feet wide had fallen inward, the upper part of the tank is rotating clockwise. The ladder is splintering and may be all that's holding it together right now. A good strong wind is all it would take to bring the thing down. The pumphouse is still intact, but the cistern is falling apart.
Navajo Lake around Arboles has filled up a bit from last summer but is still way down. The Tank and dump gons are still there as before.
More and more development up Wilson Gulch from Carbon Jct. to Falfa are making the old RR difficult to find. Its all slowly disapearing.
July 4th weekend on the D&S was busy with 3 trains running close to capacity. The Big Boss was in town for the weekend. Saturday, after walking through all three trains and greeting nearly everyone on board, he boarded the B-7 for a ride on train 465 to Silverton.
Yesterday, I heard 480 was going into service today, but can't confirm that.
Doubleheaders scheduled for train 465 on Tues and Wed this week.