Re: 463

Carlos:
Years ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend hours and hours with a retired D&RGW engineer who started his career on a mudhen at Gunnison in the 1914-15 period. He retired from the D&RGW running the hump engine at Grand Junction. When I asked him what his favorite engines were (I expected the 470s or 480s), he said on the narrow gauge it was the mudhens and on the standard gauge it was the 1500 series 4-8-2s. I thought he made his choices on the ones he ran the most, but he said no. He ran mudhens on the Crested Butte branch, over Cerro Hill, some on Marshall Pass, and a few runs on the RGS. We were talking one night and he was telling me what it was like to be on a stock train going over Cerro with three mudhens or a couple of the C21s which he called "Little Mudhens." He said "Wish you could have seen a mudhen run, they were quite an engine." He died in 1980. First time I saw 463 run in Chama, his words were in my head and I thought to myself "Frank, you were right, they are neat engines."