Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec - FriendsOfCumbresToltec.org

The Chama coal tipple returned to life today. It's my understanding that the last time the buckets operated like this was in 1995. Full use/operation of the tipple hasn't happened since 1975.








A big thank you to team leader John Sutkus! John and his team has been working on the tipple for years. Great job!

One of the biggest problems was the leaning of the tipple because of the failure of the bottom mud sill and the vertical member collapsing into it causing the tipple to lean so badly that it knocked all of the coal bucket tracks out of alignment. The first job was to replace the collapsed mud sill and pour a concrete grade beam and then start jacking the tipple slowly over several years back into plumb. Then, they could start working on the track. Piece of cake....

Congratulations to John Sutkus and his many crews over the years fixing all of the problems. Now, where did we put all those drop bottom gons loaded with company coal.....

Thanks, Joe. Very cool.