Re: Rio Grande Glory Days

I spent hours with a retired D&RGW engineer who worked with Lathrop. He told me that all the stories in this book and his first one "Little Engines and Big Men" were true, but a lot of the things were done by other people and not Lathrop. In reseaching the Crested Butte branch for the book I am working on, I found a lot of newspaper accounts that confirm many of the stories, but the names are not the same ones he uses. I guess we can forgive him claiming credit and getting the names wrong as he was one of the first to write about the narrow gauge.
For example, in Little Engines and Big Men, Lathrop claims credit for making 375 into a good running engine. The retired engineer told me that it was actually the Gunnison shop foreman that reworked the 375 and fixed the problem. Lathrop fired her the first time after she was worked on and claimed credit for making her fire better. Still is worth trying to find the book. I would sell mine, but it is autographed by Lathrop and Dick Kindig (cover painting is based on one of his photos).