Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec - FriendsOfCumbresToltec.org

How long is the tail track on the wye? Can the engine and three or four cars be wyed at one time?

Bill Hoss

If I remember right, it's barely enough to fit a locomotive and tender. It MAY hold a loco and tender plus one car, but I don't think so.

Ugh, that's a lot of work everyday to turn the 1st class and parlor cars (I'm assuming that's what they're doing down there).

Bill

I think I got the moves figured out. By looking on the sattelite photos of the Chama yard, I believe that the short tail track will accomodate engine,tender and one car. The longer tail track acommodates engine tender and three or four cars. The trip down to the Y is T -tender E - engine O - observation P - first class and F - flat car

so you have. TEOPF. heading to the wye. TE drops OPF in the long tail. TE goes to the shot tail wye and grabs O and places O in a siding after going through the wye. TE goes back to grab P and places P in a different siding. Finally TE grabs F and places F in a different siding. TE then grabs O from first siding, then grabs P and then grabs F. so the new configuration is. F-P-O-TE. Places three cars in the FPO in the track that tomorrows train is setting by the station. The TE goes through the wye and is turned to E-T and then pushes the F-P-O and couples to tomorrows train. E-T. then returns to the engine house.

Thoughts?

Larry

Let me save ya'll some headaches here.

As someone who makes the moves on the wye on a regular basis I can tell you...

As it is right now, the shortest leg of the wye (near to the stock pens) is long enough to hold one tender and engine, say the 488 for example, and three passenger cars.

routine switching involves taking four cars down, dropping one off either at the stock pens, or across the highway, and then bringing the other three cars around the wye, then connecting to the fourth car, and shoving them all back down the main track.

thats really all there is to it. :)

Thanks for the info. The satelite photo was pretty grainy and I was using a divider to "measure" the visible track length.

The short tail looked much shorter than it is. Aww heck, it's more fun doing all those moves. ;)

Larry

Larry L Kotur wrote:Thanks for the info. The satelite photo was pretty grainy and I was using a divider to "measure" the visible track length.

The short tail looked much shorter than it is. Aww heck, it's more fun doing all those moves. ;)

Larry

No problem, like I said I just didn't want to leave you guessing.

I'm actually really impressed you were able to get as close to correct as you were with Satellite images. I would have never thought that would be a possible way of even guessing at the answer.

Thanks for the answer Evan. I haven't been out there since the early 80's but I thought I remembered the tail track being more than an engine long. I suspect by that time of the day, you just want to be done.

Bill in Missouri

So, Evan, If I got this right, that car that just gets set out (I assume it's the concessions car) before the locomotive and the other three cars are turned on the wye, doesn't actually get turned around. It does, however, remain the fourth car from the rear, just ahead of the rider gon. Thanks for your explanation. I've long wondered about how the turn gets done.