Re: Operating Speeders

Actually I have ridden speeders ahead of the excorsion train twice. Both were west bound. The first ride was with a Mexican track worker who carried a 30-30 lever action rifle in case the locomotive got crossed with a bull."Jonesy", the Special Agent, said nothing increased the value of a cow like crossing it with a locomotive. On this ride, from Antonito to Osier,I was impressed at how hard that little speeder had to work on those grades with the two of us on board. As we came around one hilly curve we went right thru a flock of sheep. No casualties!
The ride with the track supervisor was from Osier to the Garfield Monument where I got off for the run by and someone else got to ride to Cumbres.
Just about the Phantom Curve we did find a rock
in the middle of the track. It was a small football shaped boulder about 2'long. We couldn't quite get stopped and when we hit it it derailer the speeder. No damage to us or the speeder. We rolled the rock out of the way
and waited until the train came around the point across the valley. If I remember correctly the pictures of the train coming around that point were about the only pictures I got. Those would be slides and I have them in cassettes according to the year of the trip. If I can remember just which year that was I'll check to see just what I did get.
You mentioned the value of the things that we were lucky enough to get back then. I have been having the same thoughts and I have wondered if
somehow maybe they could be used to help the C&TS
preservation. I'm going to have to look into that. I've got a bunch of stuff since for a number of years I went out for the Rocky Mountain Club Excursion Memorial Day weekend and
then I would go back in October and ride the Alamosa Kiwanis Club Fall"Color Caravan". The trips were the same except that on the fall trip there were a lot more "Daisy Pickers". Can you believe some of those people would set and play cards and never look out the window!!??