Steam & Excursion > Tiempo de Alamosa (dieciocho)

Alamosa Time!
We (TO member Stevo de Weimario & I) rode the regular trip over La Veta Pass and back.  Earl Knoob was engineer, but I can't remember the fireman's name- I think he went by the nickname "Lieutenant'? (Can that be right?)   On the way east the Lieutenant shared his seat with Stevo and I.  Stevo was part of the 2472 restoration and I'd hung around the 4449 during the AFT tour, so we both had a somewhat (ok, highly) dodgy notion of oil firing.  We (mostly Stevo) had known Earl from his Chama days and had visited he and his truly lovely wife Carmen (sadly since passed) many times in the past.  Here, we had simply followed him to Alamosa.
Photos 1&2.  Stevo firing out of Alamosa.
Photo 3.  Cool over-the-tender smoke shot- do that again, Stevo!
Photo 4.  My turn.  I've tried coal firing on the C&TS...  Jeez!  Give me a scoop and the results vacillate between comical and pathetic, I guess mostly depending on whether or not you're the one who needs the steam- engineers being the least amused.
Photo 5.  Steam Selfie. (What a Doof!)
SR 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/15 13:39 by BoilingMan.

---

---

---

.

---

---

Cool pics! Where was this exactly?

Yep, that's Earl with his Derby hat.  Good man.

kurt765 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Cool pics! Where was this exactly?

San Luis Valley east of Alamosa, CO.    BSB  

That would have been "Lieutenant Dan" Adler.  2009 was the last good good year.  Next year they got a new manager in Alamosa who didn't "get" this whole steam engine thing.  He loved dome cars, they began cutting the schedule back, laid off half the crew, made the engineers work as midnight hostlers on part time basis.  The whole thing started to auger in and it was no longer any fun.  When the offer to go to Texas state came along, I jumped at the chance.

Earl! Hoped you'd see this and say something! Steve says Hi, had a beer w him yesterday- we wondered how you were making out back east.
Did I get the Lieutenant right? Is that who it was that day?
SR
And thanks again for the ride!

You know, looking at these- I'm the only one not wearing gloves. It's all fun and games till someone gets scalded by the steam! Jeez.
On the other hand, at least I had my shoes and pants on- points for THAT!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/15 19:29 by BoilingMan.

Steve looked like a happy man when he got the GM job down there, hope it hasn't
worn off!

Out

What locomotive is this? I see a number 18, but I don't connect
that to anything.

Nice shots. Looks like a lot of deserving guys were having a lot
of fun.

John.

San Luis & Rio Grande #18. She was built ALCO for the Lake Superior & Ishpeming RR. From there she went to the Grand Canyon, Mount Hood and SL&RG railroads.

I can't say that we were in any way deserving, just REALLY lucky!

S_W

Ha! Yeah, "Deserving" sounded odd to me too.

I've always said, ours is a great hobby who's tag line should be, "Sure, why not?"
We've had some great adventures over the years and most have begun with, "Sure, why not?"
It works every time.
SR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/15 11:41 by BoilingMan.