POTR #62 Front Row Seats

PEACE ON THE ROAD

Front Row Seats

September 2, 2010

There are certain things in life that are taken to be be the very best that is available. In automobiles it is either the Rolls Royce or the Cadillac. In a business environment it is the office with a large window. In apartments the Pent House is on the top floor because it the best. In many other things it can be said that it is the crème de la crème. In the theater the very best seats to view the show are located on The Front Row. We have those seats here in the United Campground in Durango, Colorado. First of all we are parked with the front of the motor home headed east to catch the first rays of morning sun. Just out in front of us about sixty feet is the tracks of the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Rail Road. Twice in the morning and twice in the evening we have a short but spectacular show as the steam train heads toward Silverton or completes its run back to Durango. A couple hundred foot to the right of us is a road crossing so the engineer starts blowing his whistle shortly before the train reaches the camp ground. Since there is a slight grade through the campground there is plenty of steam and smoke to enhance the show. There is a one man putt-putt that comes 15 or 20 minutes ahead of the steamer and one that also follows behind. Once in a while there are work trains that come through as a bonus.

THE DSNGRR ENGINE #482 ARRIVING IN ROCKWOOD STATION

There has been a story circulating on the Internet that the gauge of the American Standard Gauge Rail Road dates back to the chariots of the Roman Empire. While there may have been some slight stretch of the facts but basically the story is accurate. Grooves were cut into stones to guide wagons across dangerous areas long before the roman empire came into existence. The grooves were cut between 4' 6” and 4' 9” in most instances. Sixty percent of the world's rail roads use the “Standard Gauge” of 4' 8.5”. Other sizes are used in many locations. In the Colorado mountains there were several reasons to use a gauge of 3'. First and foremost was consideration of cost. With the smaller gauge all the rolling stock was smaller. This included engines, tenders, box cars, flatbeds, gondolas, and passenger cars. The smaller equipment was cheaper to build. The tracks that needed to be laid was smaller, lighter and cheaper as were the ties. Because the trackage and equipment was smaller the cuts required through any hill or through a canyon could be narrower. Any trestles and bridges that needed to be built could be lighter and therefore cheaper. Another advantage was a shorter turning radius allowing negotiation in tight areas. The grade that a narrow gauge could negotiate was steeper by a couple degrees than a standard gauge. That shorter turning radius and couple of degrees climbing ability allowed the narrow gauge to go into areas not available to standard gauge trains. There were disadvantages too. The narrow gauge made them more unstable thus requiring lower speeds. In the mountains that may have been a minimal disadvantage because any train would have to go slow. The smaller engines and rolling stock necessitated smaller loads which was overcome by simply running more trains.

THE DSNGRR EXCURSION TRAIN FROM DURANGO ENTERING OUR CAMPGROUND

When a train comes through there is a lot of steam and smoke. There is the chuff, chuff, chuff of the drivers, the rattle and clatter of the steam valves. The engineer is ringing the brass bell and the whistle is blowing before every road crossing and perhaps they still blow the whistle near the homes of former engineers like they did forty years ago. Every one of the wheels clickety clacks across the rail joints and any irregularity of the tracks. The ground shakes like a small earthquake as the train goes by. In just a minutes time silence returns, the smoke dissipates and the last car of the car of the train is around the bend or has gotten so small in the distance that a person is unsure if it was just there. For all the noise and all the clatter is is amazing how quiet the train can be. It may be possible to hear the whistle from a mile away echoing down the canyon as the train approaches a road crossing. Yet if there is no crossing and the wind is right and blows the smoke away the train can approach within a hundred yards before it is detected. At that distance the whistle can be very startling when it is the first sign that the train has arrived. The putt-putts that precede the steam train and the diesel engines are even quieter. There were a couple evenings that we went up the canyon to photograph the train, then move down the route and photograph it again and repeat, then photograph it a final time at our camp or even close to the station. It was really a lot of fun. Now I have lots of pictures and video to edit.

As near as I can determine the last time I was in Aztec Ruins, New Mexico was in 1967. It has been long enough that I am unsure what has changed and what has not. Back when cameras took film and it was expensive to develop I did not take as many pictures as I do with the digital so it is difficult to compare with today. Somehow the ruins themselves seem to have changed little except for some minor excavations and some filling to protect certain areas. But it really seems to me that the visitors center has been improved a great deal. It is an amazing place to visit and contemplate how life might have been for the Native American inhabitants of the 1100's and 1200's. There is much speculation as to the real purpose of the pueblo that was built here. It might have been a planned cultural center, a religious center, or perhaps simply a village that built in a good location to live with access to water, crop lands and trading routes which became an important center for the surrounding area. The first explorers that saw the ruins thought that the Aztec from far down in Mexico must have built the pueblos. It was some time later it was determined that the the Anasazi, translated as “the ancient ones” or by some “the ancient enemy” were the actual builders of the ruins around 800 to 1000 years ago. There were several occupations and abandonments over 2 to 3 hundred years. Inhabitants came from Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon to build the 450 room up to three stories high and the numerous kivas.

DWELLINGS, KIVAS, STORAGE ROOMS OF THE ANASAZI AT AZTEC RUINS, NM

No visit to the this area would be complete unless at least a small amount of time was spent at Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde is about fifty miles to the northwest as a crow might fly or an Anasazi might walk from Aztec ruins. The American natives that lived at Mesa Verde built pit houses on the top of high mesas for several hundred years and then moved down into the cliffs to build their homes. There is a lot of speculation about why they made the transition, better living conditions, safety, or some other reason. The water supply was often 700 to 900 below in the canyon bottom and the trek for all water had to be made frequently. Some of the cliff dwellings were only a few rooms and others contained over a hundred rooms plus many kivas. The people seem to have left the mesa because of a drought that lasted over sixty years. They moved further south into Arizona nearer the rivers where a more dependable supply of water was available. There are over 4,400 archiological sites in the park with 600 some cliff dwellings. There was a fire some years ago and due to the removal of vegetation there were several sites discovered. As I drove along the roads I could not help but wonder, “How many more sites are still to be found just a few yards from where people pass every day?”

CLIFF PALACE RUINS IS THE LARGEST CLIFF DWELLING IN NORTH AMERICA

As I drive from state to state and town to town I am struck with the beauty of this country and the diversity of things to see. I only scratch the surface of a small area in each place that I stop. I drive the Interstates and main highways from point to point and then get into the Jeep and then look for a few diversions near where the motorhome is parked. Even at that I think I am seeing more than the average person will see. So from here we will slowly go south towards our winter home in Texas and look for more places to increase our amazement of this great country that we call home.

Till later this is Doug of

Peace On The Road