Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec - FriendsOfCumbresToltec.org

Deep snow on the road, yet to be plowed ...

That is impressive.

With that much snow up there, they may need to call out the snow cats to open the entire line by the end of May.

Time to fire up the Rotary OY perhaps ... ahh, it's nice to dream ...

Has it been 10+ years since it last operated? Wonder what it would take, guess a 1472 inspection of the locomotive parts and new tubes.

As great as that would be to see, OY won't (per John Bush on NGDF) operate this year, but maybe in 2018. The rotaries don't require FRA certification, though they do need to meet state and local requirements. Also to consider is the fact that this snow, although deep, is highly compacted and inter-laid with ice. It's my understanding that when the rotaries were in regular use, they operated more frequently, and through new snow. If we don't get a lot of sunny, warm weather between now and opening day, it's going to take some big Cats to break it up!

I do a little ice road trucking, and drive the extreme north- Alaska, The Yukon, Northwest Territories. During the last major snow, I was going up the hill for pictures, and passed a Caterpillar D-8 bulldozer clearing Highway 17 just above Lobato. I turned around, remembering that discretion was the better part of valor.

This is worse, by far.