Bob told a story about a couple of well-known modelers of the rivet-counting variety who were visiting the Narrow Gauge Motel while the collection and he were in Alamosa. One of these fellows was known to draw a plan or two now and then and it seems they were standing at the counter in the depot/museum and arguing about the “correct” length of a 3000 Class D&RGW narrow gauge boxcar – surely one of the most drawn pieces of railroad equipment in all of railroad-dom. They were arguing over some fraction of an inch or so and Bob had just about enough of each one being so sure they were right on the dimensions, so he offered to load them up in the gut buster and go down to the yards and measure one. After all there were a couple dozen of them in the Alamosa yard at any given time. So off they went.
Of course, Bob knew all of the crews working out of Alamosa so he left the guys in the carryall and went to talk to the switch crew. He let them in on what he wanted to do and they were more than willing, so they went down with the dual coupler diesel and tied on to a cut of boxcars and shoved in the slack on the cut, which was parked with handbrakes. Bob picked out one in the middle of the cut and told the visiting nabobs to break out their tapes and measure the car. Notebooks and tape measures came out and before long they both had a measurement. But this can’t be right! They both got the same measurement and it was an inch or two shorter than either one figured.
Then Bob signaled the switch crew and they reversed and pulled the slack out of the cut. Bob told the boys to measure the same car again. Lo and behold, that old wooden car was now a couple inches longer! He told them that the next time someone asked them the length of a narrow gauge car they should ask whether it was being pulled or pushed!
That was the end of that particular lesson on the length of narrow gauge equipment.
