November 5, 2013
Once upon a time, it was a sleek and shining example of the latest in high-tech transportation, turning heads as it made its way slowly along the tracks in the great Southwest, pulled along by a hard-working steam locomotive.
From left, Sandia High students John Gallegos, Hunter Williams and Eric Hancock work on taking apart a 111-year-old Cumbres & Toltec narrow-gauge railroad car. Once it is dismantled, the students will begin rebuilding it. The years, clearly, have taken a heavy toll on the 1902 Cumbres & Toltec narrow-gauge railroad car. Now, more than anything, it looks like a pile of junk. Hey! Not so fast, my friend, wait just a minute!
On a recent morning, Sandia High School teacher Robert Gillespie gestured toward what little remains of the rusted, worm-eaten railroad car. He smiled, then predicted emphatically: “This will run again.”
And given the enthusiasm of a handful of boys in his Advanced Building Technology Class, Gillespie knows what he is talking about. The six boys – four of whom were present and hard at work the morning the Journal came calling – are busy restoring or rebuilding the 111-year-old car from the ground up on the Sandia High campus. On this week day, they were wrapping up the dismantling portion of the job: struggling to unscrew big rusted bolts, using sledge hammers and crow bars to pry rotted wood from metal parts, getting rid of much of the old to make way for the new. John Gallegos, a 16-year-old junior, and seniors Cody Lindgren, 19, Eric Hancock, 17, and Hunter Williams, 18, described the class as one they really enjoy.
A handful of students in the Advanced Building Technology class at Sandia High are working on rebuilding this railroad car. Design and drafting students are also involved, creating sketches that will help in the reconstruction. “We get to learn new stuff that I never really thought of,” said Williams, who hopes to make a career out of restoring old automobiles. “I love doing stuff like this,” Lindgren said. “I would never miss this class.” The boys aren’t alone in their fondness for the project. This is Gillespie’s seventh year of teaching and his third at Sandia. “I love it here,” he said, “especially when I’ve got a railroad car to rebuild.”
The old car was restored once before, back in 1925 in Alamosa, Colo., when it was part of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad fleet. At the time, the federal government had decreed that no wood-frame freight cars were to be built or rebuilt after 1928, according to Tim Tennant, President of Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad Co. It is unclear where the flat-bed car on the Sandia campus was built, he said, but Denver and St. Louis are the two likeliest places.
These plans and drawings are for use in rebuilding the old Cumbres & Toltec railroad car. When students finish rebuilding the car, it will be put to use part time and will also be on display as part of the collection of the Friends of the C&T Scenic Railroad museum. Under his watchful eye, Gillespie’s students were tearing the car down to its bare metal essentials: wheels, brakes and suspension system. Any pieces that could be recycled were to be reused. Wood still in fairly good shape was stacked in a corner near the project. When the demolition is completed, the students will begin the actual rebuilding phase, using time-tested but perhaps somewhat antiquated methods – in Gillespie’s words, “exactly the way it was done in 1902.”
The boys in the class aren’t the only Sandia students involved in the project. Design and drafting students are busy creating sketches that will be used in the rebuilding; engineering students are using it to study early 20th-century engineering; photography students are documenting the project from start to finish; history students are studying it as part of the American industrial revolution and the role the railroad played in New Mexico’s development; and the school’s yearbook has sent a reporter and photographer to record the work for the ages.
When it’s all done, the car will go back into service on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad in the San Juan Mountains, probably part time. It will also be on display in Chama as part of the 150-piece historical collection of the Friends of the C&T Scenic Railroad museum. About 40 of those old railroad cars still operate. The railroad is owned jointly by New Mexico and Colorado, and operated by an agency created by Congress in 1974.
The C&TS car was delivered to Sandia High in mid-August. Gillespie said it’s hard to say precisely when the work will be completed – perhaps this year, but more likely early next year.
- Photo-Jim Thompson, Albuquerque Journal
- Sandia H.S. Pic 3.jpg (68.13 KiB) Viewed 2288 times
- Photo-Jim Thompson, Albuquerque Journal
- Sandia H.S. Pic 2.jpg (69.62 KiB) Viewed 2288 times
- Photo-Jim Thompson, Albuquerque Journal
- Sandia H.S. Pic 1.jpg (74.84 KiB) Viewed 2288 times
