Re: Chama Visitor's Center and Covered Storage in Yard

Herb,

One point of clarification concerning the present C&TS passenger cars. The cars are outfitted with a pre-constructed steel frame made of tube steel. This frame is then covered with a fiberglas siding material and of the course the steel roof covers the frame. An uneducated guess would be that the frame weighs maybe 1 1/2 to 2 tons. Without the fiberglass siding they would sorta resemble the Silver Vista. The Antonito trainset is constructed on basically unmodified 6500 series 40 ft steel flats with the "fishbelly" side sills still intact (cut out at the ends for the steps). The Chama trainset is a mixture of 6500 series flats with the fishbelly sides cut off and some former standard gauge ex-DRGW MOW flatcars some of which are still stacked up south of Fort Knox in Antonito. Both trainsets had steel tube frameworks fabricated by a contractor and then tucked to the RR and set on the flats. Earl K. may be able to add the particulars. I worked on several of the Chama trainset cars in 2000 where we removed the interior paneling to pull the windows out for repairs. Later that week, I also ran across several drawings in a desk in the Antonito enginehouse showing how the steel frame was designed. Wish I had made copies of the drawings, they were quite interesting.