Silverton Appreciation Day

Today is the Silverton Appreciation Day train that left Silverton slightly after 8 a.m. this morning. The 480 arrived with the empty train this morning about 7:30 and turned on the wye before backing up to the depot. The train was sold out and it departed in crisp 20 degree weather.
Charlie Bradshaw started these trains the first year he owned the railroad, and they have continued for all these years. The early days were rowdy ones for our train--Durango's were like church picnics by comparison. More than one rider had to be carried from the train upon its return to Silverton, including a county commissioner to be.
Early on, we managed to get the train cancelled for several years when Charlie was pacing the return train in his Jeep and was witness to a grand job of mooning done by a rather large group of Silvertonians just before the Hermosa tank. Charlie was not amused by that massing of flesh, all pointed at the train and all its occupants, so we were punished for several years.
I'm afraid most of us have become respectable since then. The last car on the train was where all the action, also equated as fun, took place, and no one fell off, and we've survived to be old and older farts.
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