rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I should probably tell you more about my idiosyncratic history with the tourist railroad I have always known as "CATS".

Although most of my life has been spent East of the Mississippi, I had a summer internship in New Mexico during {my second summer of grad school} during the summer of 1971. One day, the local newspaper had an article about turning a former piece of the D&RGW into a tourist railroad, so I just had to go there. When I did get there, somebody just standing around told me that all the tickets were long since sold, so a took a few pictures, and then took a few more as the trip started; unfortunately, some of the film I used that day wasn't very good, but here are a few of them. Then I went home and that became part of my past. It didn't help that I written "Chalma" instead of "Chama" in my notes.

Then sometime, I think it was summer/fall of 2000, while looking through eBay for memorbilia, I ran across auctions by a guy who was trying to help the railroad stay afloat while they were considering what to do because of their abandoning by an operator. As a result of that, I came in touch with a supporter who called himself "Jaybawb", and I have followed the railroad more-or-less for the past 20 years. Even if I wanted to, I doubt if I could accurately recount all the twists and turns since then. Suffice it to say there has been lots of local politics involved, and lots of people not speaking to each other. "Jaybawb" recently died - he was around 100, outliving some of those he had argued the most with. Perhaps the next generation will get along better.

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

Awesome set, your pictures are almost a time machine.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

JoAnneK01 Loc: Lahaina, Hawaii

Great photos. Just love them old steam engines. Mahalo for sharing.

Jay Pat Loc: Round Rock, Texas, USA

I greatly enjoyed the story and images!!
I met a gentleman whose first name was Jay. If I knew his last name, it has escaped me. I hadn't seen him in the last several years and after asking around I was told he had passed away. I assume he was Jaybawb.
Image #1 Todays Chama Depot looks much better.
Image #2 Looks like the first passenger train. The passenger cars were converted box cars. Now, the old passenger cars are slowly being converted back to box cars.
Image #3 Looks like this passenger train is next to the hwy north of Chama. This area doesn't look anything like this, now.
Image #4 Looks like this is at Los Pinos water tank.
1971 was the first year of operation as the CTSRR.
CTSRR was created in 1970.
I volunteer at this railroad.
Pat

Thanks for posting these images.

Edit: Just read your comment in another post. Jay Wimer (not sure of this spelling) This is the gentleman I was thinking of. Pat

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Yes, I know that you volunteer there, which honestly is one of the reasons I was careful in my choice of words. Volunteers and the coats of paint that they assiduously apply is one of the reasons the appearance of that place improves year after year. The appearance of that first year apparently is what the D&RGW left. Dr. Bill Keller, the head of the first operating company, also a Mechanical Engineering Professor at Stanford University, had designed those first “coaches”, from boxcars available on site. They were still painting them when I saw them. Apparently folks were laughing at them for trying to run a passenger-carrying railroad from what the D&RGW had left behind - but they did, with the assistance of volunteers. My understanding is that the current passenger cars were built from the frames of old steel pipe-carrying cars also left behind.

Jay Pat Loc: Round Rock, Texas, USA

Thanks for the info!

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

In the early days of “the Gote” {around 1990}, Dr. Keller used to come by and rememinesce. If I remember correctly, he was a ‘steam fan’ who had started a small railroad at Lake Tahoe {experience in running a tourist operation was one of the requirements put down by the states to be an operator candidate}. Today, the states operate the railroad themselves I believe.

jederick Loc: Northern Utah

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

accidental duplicate

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Mistake in above.

“Bill Keller” was a basketball player here in Indiana.

The first head of CATS was named “Dr. Bob Keller” I now remember.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

If you look very carefully at my first photo, there is an ugly box on top of the utility pole next to the depot. It is often the ‘poster child’ for my deciding not to ‘improve shots’ by “cloning out” ugly details like telephone poles or wires. I posted that shot at the ‘Gote’ some years ago, back when ‘the Gote’ limited photos to 20 KB each, so I had to reduce the size of photos both in size {pixels} and in quality. Almost immediately a “Friend” asked me to post a shot, devoting all 20KB to just a crop of that box. He was in charge of a “Friends” project to restore the telegraph system {appearance only}, and he had never seen anything like that box {which he would have never seen if I had “cloned” or cropped it out of the picture}.