My old friend Charlie traveled to Canon City, Colorado in May, 1977 from his home in Chicago, with plans for us to take the historic Cumbres & Toltec excursion in Southern Colorado. A fairly long drive down to the railhead, we passed through Manassa on the way, birthplace of the "Manassa Mauler", better-known as Jack Dempsey! It's a narrow-gauge railway, only 64 miles long, but every foot of the way spectacularly scenic, parts downright scary! The route crosses the CO-NM state line numerous times. Here's a diagram: Below, the years having dissolved-away much of the original hue of the photos, our locomotive being lovingly touched by me, and Charlie by the old rotary snow-plow locomotive. Charlie's life has been marred by close-scarring beyond the level of my own, in which the pain was remote due to bloodline: Charlie married the first time a few years after our trip, in his early 40s, I believe. Married less than a year, one morning his new wife sat on the edge of the bed, said she had a terrible headache, fell off, and was dead. He maintains a tiny shrine in her memory at home, the home he shared with her, which was her's to begin with, her heirs bequeathing it to him. He still lives there nearly 40 years later. He has a heart of gold. Frank
I loved the video, especially the sounds of the train and the whistle. It just occurred to me that the different sequences of the whistle-blowing have different meanings, so off to google I went. Gadzooks! They actually do use a communication code. Why did I just figure that out after all this time?? We've ridden the small-scale train at Royal Gorge but it was many years ago when the kids enjoyed that kind of stuff on vacation. And I still miss Frank!!!
My uncle was an engineer and we got to ride the trains with our aunt from Atlanta to Waycross Ga. I liked riding trains as a child.