Cumbres & Toltec 463 (K-27)

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Nice video.  I like the ending runbys with the K27 pulling 14 freight cars + caboose.  The headlight looks somewhat like the one it had when delivered new from Baldwin so it's not too crazy looking.

[Hansel Gordon]

Holly caterpillars! Never seen anything like this before!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN6O0J1rLpY

[Richard "Steam" Symmes]

Oh, yeah?  Well, believe it. I've been there and seen it!

Back in 1972 we drove out there and rode both the C&TS and the Silverton trains.

The C&TS train got "stuck" right in the spot where your video was made. Right by the water tank. We had only one locomotive on the train. The caterpillars were just as deep as you see here. The locomotive could not get started with the train attached. So they uncoupled and moved the locomotive ahead about a couple of hundred feet, putting down sand as they went. Meantime, crew members with cans and shovels went along and put down more sand.  Guys with brooms went way up ahead and tried to sweep the rails beyond.

Eventually they recoupled to the train and we got going again, but it delayed us by nearly an hour. The evidence of the encounter was a greenish "paste" all over the railheads.

I have pictures!

[Ira Schreiber]

I was there in 1971 and have photos of the Great Caterpillar Migration stopping the train. A crew member stood on the pilot with a bucket of sand and spread it on the rails. It was quite a sight.
Ira Schreiber
Who is in Colorado

[Hansel Gordon]

By the way, these videos weren't filmed by me. I've never been out west. If we had caterpillars migrating in Alna, we'd be in trouble!

[Richard "Steam" Symmes]

Hey, there's plenty of sand in Maine. Get some coffee cans and start pouring it on the track. No worries!

[Steve Smith]

Anybody know about how long each season, or each time the caterpillars come, they plague the C & TS?

I wonder whether they ever experimented with some sort of narrow-slit air or steam blasting device just ahead of the pony truck to see if it would knock all or most of the critters off the rail without increasing coal/water consumption to an impractical degree.

[Ira Schreiber]

The caterpillars seem to appear every few years in the huge masses that slow the trains. The migration usually is only a week or so.

Ira in Colorado