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Lessons Learned From Working on a Historic American West Railroad | Short Film Showcase


4m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[Music] America built the railroads, and the railroads built America. Americans, Americans of all nationalities. [Music] America's not just a place. America is a concept. There is nothing we can't accomplish if we put our mind to it, that we were not afraid to have giant dreams and that we are not so fearful that we couldn't work together and help each other. This railroad captures that concept. That's why it is important to me that it survived.

[Music] I grew up in Telluride, Colorado, and as a little boy, I played, as most little kids do, around everything that was there. One of the things that was there was the old railroad, which was about to die. So I played in the train yard. When the train came, they chased us out regularly, about every 15 minutes, and I just wouldn't leave. There was something about it that kept drawing me back, and eventually, the old railroaders put me up in the cab of the engine.

Like so many of these things that happen to you in early childhood, it left a strong impression. Steam engines are alive; they have a soul. You can feel them, and they make you feel alive to be around. Years later, I fell off a ladder and broke my hip. It was a life-changing event, two days before my 29th birthday.

The little light comes on that comes on for most of us that are midlife crisis. I had managed to get mine quite early, and it said, "You don't have to be old to be dead." So if there's something that really grabs you, something you really care about, then you should go do it. Go do it now! I managed to get taught by the last of the old-timers who had done it every day in their life, and they passed it on.

You brought them like they ran them; you serviced them like they serviced them. You fixed them like they fixed them; you rebuilt them like they rebuilt them. And you use all those skills—you do it the same way they did it, preserving it by doing it. We do not use modern tools to maintain this railroad, and we teach the old ways of doing it so that 50 years from now, people can still do it long after we're gone.

Not only are we preserving the trains in the environment in which they ran, but we're preserving the way in which that labor was done and passing that on from generation to generation to generation. That's a testament to the traditions that are part of this railroad. In 1869, an amazing revolution happened, and you could suddenly get across the country in about a week or 10 days. A scant eleven years later, there was a railroad here in Chama, New Mexico.

Now the rest of the world has moved on, but here, as far as the eye can see in any direction, it is the authentic West, and you are immersed with people who are living it every day. They didn't come here to do this; they do this because they were here. And then once they started doing it, they fell in love with it.

[Music] We have people here—a young guy here who is a fifth-generation railroader. His parents worked for the railroad; his grandparents worked for the railroad; their parents worked for the railroad, and their parents worked for the railroad. So we have one family who's continuously had somebody working for this railroad since 1890.

The railroad was built mostly by immigrants who had come to this country. We're talking first-generation who had moved west to find a new life. They came here speaking a variety of languages. This was hard physical labor that put you in touch with the environment all the time. You're out there, winter and summer, day and night, rain and shine. So the ghosts of those people still inhabit this area.

[Music] I've had some of those experiences 30-40 years ago when I was younger, up against a particularly difficult problem, and things went remarkably well, as though somehow you'd gotten a hand from somebody who had done it before. We all spend time wondering about where we'll be when we're not where we are, and not only where we'll be when we retire or where we'll be for eternity.

I would imagine that this is a place that I would like my spirit to be. I sometimes wonder if the reason I am here is because of the old railroaders that I met in Telluride, 60-plus years ago, who helped me out and started that passion in me. Now, because those railroads don't exist, they're here, and maybe I'll be here when I'm not here anymore.

[Music] For me, this place is who I am. I suppose for each of us, there are sounds and smells and the feel of the air that get to your core, that tell you you're alive, that tell you this is how the world is supposed to feel. For me, this is that place. The rustling of the aspen, the blooming of the columbines, the thunderstorms and blizzards. There are deer and elk, bear and coyotes, hawks and eagles, a profusion of wildflowers.

To be here and watch the sunrise is glorious. To watch the help and glow in the sunsets is glorious. A zen Scott Momaday said, "The west must be seen to be believed, but it must be believed to be seen." In a place largely made of our imagination, this is a place where your imagination can run free. You, you. [Music]

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