Cjvrr's comment reminds me of an incident years ago that made me, and several others, leave a tourist railroad. There were three of us on the steam locomotive one miserable hot summer day. We came in from our last trip, and were met by the son of the guy that was leasing and operating the property. We were all given thirty days off, for something we had absolutely nothing to do with. We tried to defend ourselves, and explain what had actually happened.

We were not listened to, and the kid's last words were to use the F-bomb with regard to my engineer's ethnicity. We all left, and made a series of phone calls, and effectively starved the place for train and engine crews. I have proudly served that thirty days off for over forty years as a badge of honor. In today's climate, if we, and particularly our engineer, had filed a lawsuit, we probably would have owned the place.

And EDM's "incident" was about 3 years after a volunteer brakeman at the same place lost both legs at the knees, while on a weekend work train. The place was known for loose operating practices, and "payback" attitudes towards certain personnel.

Howard P.

Interesting Kelly as my experience has been different in general. I have lived and worked in the Southwest US, including SW Colorado, Northern NM, Arizona and California for the majority of my adult life. In my experience working with and for Hispanics, I have found them to be freindly, respectful and denonstrate a strong work ethic. I have also seen negative attitutes, but no more than I have with Anglos.

In my view, in general, any negative culture in Chama/Antonito has more to do with the railroad employees themselves and not the general poulation. Even then, it is not all inclusive to all the employees.

My two cents...

MDR

I wonder why this hasn’t been more widely picked up on by at least the local news outlets?

I don't believe that there are any local news outlets. Chama is the definition of "out in the sticks". As I was told, it was 78 miles to the nearest traffic light, and 110 miles to the nearest movie theater.

Once, I assisted in adjusting the valve timing on an engine in Chama, a procedure that took until 2am. The next morning Gary Getman, the Superintendent, apologized for the long night, saying that usually, they finished the work day at 4pm. I replied with, "What else is there to do around here?" His reply, "Well, do you drink?"

Pretty much correct. The nearest civilization....meaning you can find Walmart and Home Depot....is in Espanola, which is 80 miles to the south, and likely where that traffic light is located. The nearest media is probably in Santa Fe, and that's another half hour to the south, at least. It would likely take an earthquake for the mainstream media to pick up on a story out of Chama or Antonito.

Your last reference gave me a chuckle. When I rolled into Skagway, AK on Easter Sunday of 2011, the town was literally standing still. I mean you could walk down the middle of Broadway (the main drag) and nothing moved. I happened by the local PD and saw two officers outside vacuuming out their cruiser, so I stopped to ask where I might find some food in this town. I chatted with the two men for several minutes and in the course of the conversation, I asked them if they got many calls during the off-season. He said yes, but they were mostly DUIs and bar-fights. LOL!

/Kevin Madore

I'm not sure that I would use Walmart as an example of civilization. Have you seen the photos of their late-night customers?

Kelly:

In the years following your evening with us heating and beating on 488's radius rod, Pagosa Springs installed a traffic light in downtown (there are a bunch there now), reducing the distance to the nearest stop light to only 45 miles...

At the time of your 1981 visit there was one bar for every 10 year-round residents. (6 bars, 600 residents) Since that time about half have closed, and a lot more people have moved to town (about 1200 population now).

Apparently it had been.

I was sent a photo of a television showing this story on KOAT news here in ABQ 3 days before this thread came online. I stayed up to the 2200 news after seeing this, and there was nothing on it... Nor was anything ever posted to the KOAT.com website.

Here's a better description:

We had an incident with an animal, which damaged the wheel well and one wheel valve stem, in a rental car traveling "cross-country" (Native reservations) to Tierra Amarilla and then to Chama. I managed emergency repairs and limped the car into Tierra Amarilla, where they made one quick repair (replaced a tire valve stem for $15), then rushed to Eddie's Chevron in Chama where they by some miracle had the proper valve stem and wheel air pressure sensor, and swapped it out for only $38 (places have charged $80-125 for this, my research showed).

The next step was to contact the rental company and ask "do we swap out the car for another one or keep going to Michigan and Wisconsin?"
It took us until we were in Alamosa in the car two days later JUST to be able to get a workable cell phone signal to call the rental company in question and ask. They gave us the official OK to continue.

When we returned the car fifteen days later, the agents did the maths:
The nearest response garage they could have sent to deal with us where it happened--had we been able to reach anyone--was 168 miles one-way.
The nearest agency of the company was in Pueblo, 200 miles from Chama.

Ultimately the rental car company discounted my rental over $100 for my on-the-road repair initiatives, and ate the other repairs needed, lumping that in with the needed oil change after 4600 miles total........

Sandy,

What rental car company, if I may ask?

I've gotten the best and friendliest service from Budget, and the worst from Hertz of course.

As it turns out, Budget. Wife found a discounted rate and insurance coverage through one of our credit cards. The local office at a small airport that has four connecting jets a day to Denver and L.A. remembered me from our last rental, two weeks to Yellowstone and Bryce Canyon, when we returned the car CLEANER than it went out. We did that this time, too (full wash and vacuum) and fully documented every last thing; it was the local office's decision to discount for my work. They said "Stuff happens, and this is nothing compared to some idiots out there--we've had one that got into an accident and insisted it left that way!"

I will note that when we showed up to pick up the car, the one rep said "Wow--how did you manage THAT price??" (It was about $660 for 15 days, we put 4600+ miles on it.... then they dropped it to $550 in the end....)

On a related note, the New Mexico Courts Case Lookup website lists a Ken Throneberry v. Cumbers Toltec Operating Llc, et. al. case. It was case number D-117-CV-202300127 and was dismissed with prejudice on 08/29/2023.

For a little more on this... from the commission report found here -

http://train.sbseiber.com/CTM2022Jul30.html

"Next up, Ken Throneberry. He explained his work on the fire patrol speeders. He couldn't get get help to perform work. He found a guy to work, but HR said no. Ken commented that this HR issue lead him to quit. In the past he did the maintenance of the speeders. Now none is being done. Fire patrol is afraid to use them. Commissioner Graybill replied that HR issues are not for a public meeting. Marvin said he looked over all of the motor cars. He had to straighten the wheels. The cars have been looked over. Marvin feels that they are safe. Marvin mentioned he won't put people on motor cars that are unsafe. Sometimes they might conk out on the line, but they are safe. Things are inspected on a daily basis. Commissioner Gibbs said that as part of the fire mitigation program, the motor cars are inspected every morning and evening. The inspection forms for the cars are patterned after the locomotive form 2's. These are kept in a log, as are the form 2's."

How do you know it fell on deaf ears?