On February 28 to March 1 the C&TS plowed snow with rotary OY for the first time since 1997. It was the first event of a season celebrating C&TS' 50th year, and 140 years of steam over Cumbres. It was an amazingly successful event that I almost missed.
I signed up mainly to support the operation, but the large size of the group was very discouraging, it had the potential to be a zoo. And some family health issues almost gave me a good excuse not to go. But I went. When I walked in to pick up my tickets, the fact I was issued a dayglo green safety vest was not reassuring. And there was safety tape all over the yard, something I had never seen before. Things were not looking up, but the die was cast.
Saturday morning I wolfed down the eggs, bacon and sausage breakfast the railroad had thoughtfully provided, and dutifully turned up for the "safety" meeting. All 150 of us in our matching vests plus herders piled into four buses for the "chase". This was going to be interesting. The caravan was four buses, a potty wagon, and ambulance flanked by assorted police cars. The only good news is there was fairly decent snow cover, and country side was pretty.
The railroad had arranged with the highway departments of both New Mexico and Colorado to control traffic so that we could park our caravan on the highway and line up safely along the road for our pictures. That was the reason for the safety vests. Somewhat to my surprise this worked quite well. My camera was humming along with some pretty decent pictures. It didn't really seem all that crowded, or at least you could work around the crowd. I started having a good time.
So here are the results. It turned out to be one of the best photo outings I have been on. The railroad and Friends had come up with an ambitious plan that really worked well.
