Reecret Chili Line, STILL Need some Facts!

PRSL:
Probably the best account of the Chili line was edited by Bob Richardson himself. The Colorado Rail Annual Issue #7 for 1966 was a special Chili Line Edition ($2.50 cover price). Here is a pertinent passage:
"Scrapping of the Santa Fe Branch began within a week of the last train, with the scrap work beginning in the yards at Santa Fe and moving north. The Antonito Ledger-News compared the piles of rail, ties and bridge timbers that collected at Antonito with the scene in 1880 when the line was being built and the track material was moving in the other direction. The only difference was the use of an electric hoist to handle the material which in 1880 had been moved by hand labor. The Joseph E. Pepper Construction Company of Denver had the job scrapping the line, working at the rate of a half mile per day."
The article does make reference to the fact if the line had not been abandoned it would have very likely been used to haul vast quantities of cement for the "atomic city" after all such cement traffic had been the greatest percentage of tonnage of any single commodity hauled on the branch in the last years of operation.
Gordon Chappell authored the article and many of his sources are listed at the end of the article if someone wants to do further research.