In early 1981, (my first year on the C&TS!) 487 and 488 were the ONLY engines. We had finished up 489's rebuild and the shop foreman was trying to muster enough courage to send it out on the road. We ran 5 days a week (Wed and Thurs off), and turning an engine to send it out the next day made for some long evenings.
488 had 487's plow that summer. The only year it had that plow. It looked like it did on the last run of the San Juan.
Our coal ramp then was on just south of the ashpit on the lead to the old engine house. There was one track out the north side of the shop, and it was stub ended. I think 482 was parked out there. I was hostler, so I may have been the guy running the engines in the yard. My first road job firing was on 489's test run to Cumbres.
George Knauff was the regular engineer out of Chama. George had been a B25 pilot in WWII. Other engineer was Jim Shawcroft. Later that summer Marvin Casias and Dale Martinez got promoted, but in June they Marvin & Dale were firing.
The D&S had just started and we lost engineers Rich Braden, Russ Fischer and Mark Yeamans to the D&S. This created a bit of a panic. George had been firing for a few years, so he had a crash course in running off the hill. Jim came over to help for a while training Marvin and Dale, who had only been firing for one summer. Eventually they hired some old Rock Island engineeer from the DOT Pueblo test track. He worked the east end.
I think Cresco tank got rebuilt the next summer.
Those "tired old locations" weren't so tired back then, were they!!
Scholl wrote....
"(1) 488 and 487 were the main engines
(2) 488 had a pilot plow
(3) 487 had no pilot plow
(4) 489 was being tested after its rebuild. We shot it on the wye being turned to head up the hill.
(5) 489's tender was loaded on the east side of the yard, with a loader, and a ramp between the roundhouse and the ash pit.
(6) Also got a shot of 488 getting sand from the sand house.
(7)Older guy engineer with gray hair, tall and lean.
(8)Logos on the tenders of the engines. All box car coaches of course.
(9)Nice whistle echo leaving the narrows.
(10)Most of the shots were the same old tired locaitons, except for Jukes Tree,Cresco and another hike-in we did after Coxo curve.
(11)Cresco tank looked pretty sad, and no sign of
Rio Grande left...it had faded out since 1971-76.
(12) Got a shot at Coxo on the uphill side of the curve, and got nice smoke from 488 for my efforts. Shot speeder 09 which later was following.
(13) Could hear the narrator from the speaker on the rider gon at the end of the train
(14)I should have used the tripod more!!! "
