In late April 1962, I had a "run-in" with the conductor of Train 462, the southbound evening Silverton. The trip was my birthday present—a chance to ride, without parents supervising, my all-time favorite railroad all the way to Silverton and back to Durango alone. At the time, we lived in Farmington, N. Mex., 60 miles southwest of Durango, on the all-freight Farmington branch. My parents trusted me on the bus to Durango and thence on the train to and from Silverton. They met me that evening in Durango for the ride home.

More than any railfan, Alva F. Lyons loved the narrow gauge and did everything possible to promote it and make the trip a pleasant experience.

The lure of the train's equipment was all too powerful. At every stop—Rockwood, Tank Creek, Tacoma, Ah Wilderness, Needleton, Elk Park—I hopped off to inspect our cars or the engine. I met no objections from the train crew other than the rear brakeman (the "trainman" on a passenger train) admonished me not to ignore the locomotive's whistle warning that the train was about to start; I had no intentions of being left behind and already knew what those two long whistles meant.

Lectured about safety

Being young, I guess I couldn't wait to get into Durango, or maybe I was full of energy after being "cooped up" all day on the train. I remember, as we rolled slowly down Railroad Avenue through the then-extensive Durango yards, deciding I could jump off and back on. I suspect the locomotive speed was, oh perhaps, five mph. Safety was not a concern, I was only 11 and invincible. I didn't even run hard to keep up.

Official D&RGW Silverton Train ticket stub from my trip in 1962.

When the train stopped at the Durango depot, I was gently restrained by an old man in blue dungarees and a railroadman's brass-lined passenger service cap—the conductor. He chided me about the dangers of moving railroad equipment and what mayhem I would have caused had I fallen.

From 30-plus years later I recall relatively little about his exact words but I remember his tone very well. It was not anger, it was concern, it was caring, it was empathy toward my high spirits but full of the pragmatism of years on the railroad. He loved his passengers, and he loved me enough to take time to warn me of the consequences. I felt no anger from the Silverton's conductor, and I was only briefly angry at him for lecturing me.

The same conductor always carried a piece of peppermint for every child on the train and I sucked mine from Hermosa to Shalona Lake along the Little High Line. He had earlier validated my ticket with his unique conductor's punch (see right), putting a "1/2" shaped hole (for halffare) in the paper souvenir portion as he removed the day's travel coupon. I recently ran across that ticket.

Not long afterward, I read a newspaper story about a man who fell under a slow (I mean really slo-o-o-ow) train which cut his entire hand cleanly off. Surgeons reattached it but said he would never use it again. I remembered the old man's lecture—and I've been a railroad safety advocate since that day.

An amazing man

A month or so later, I was back, riding one last time (this time with parents) before my family moved to Seattle. My father was surprised when the conductor knew me by name and greeted me with a friendly "Well, Michael, it's good to see you again." In his gentle low voice, he reminded me about train safety without giving my parents a clue of the previous incident.

Conductor Lyons slipped these seat reservation stubs into spring clips on the overhead luggage racks. The back (above)) shows an illustrated Silverton Train that appeared all over Durango in the late 1950s and early '60s—on Chamber of Commerce literature, on the cover to the Strater Hotel's menu, on the railroad's advertising brochure.

Front of seat stub with Conductor Lyons and the railroad's 1900s logo.

The conductor's name was Alva F. "Alvy" Lyons. When I made his acquaintance, he'd already served 52 years as conductor of the Silverton train, and its mixed freight/passenger predecessors. It is largely through his efforts the railroad still exists—he made each passenger feel personally welcomed. Before the train became all-passenger, Mr. Lyons kept a never-empty pot of hot coffee going in his caboose and served his charges graciously.

Conductor Lyons was really the symbol of true railroading in the American West. He epitomized the spirit of service fostered by a generation of railroadmen in an era when trains were the only transportation between local communities and to the outside world. The nation's railroads, including the D&RGW, may have been owned by financiers in Wall Street offices, but they were operated (and local policy was set) by true gentlemen like Alvy Lyons.

He knew each regular on his line, not just those whose tickets he punched each morning and evening but those who waited at rail side at tiny outposts like Trimble, Rockwood, Tacoma, and Cascade when he delivered the previous night's Durango Herald or brought prescription refills from the Durango pharmacy. He knew what hikers he'd dropped at Elk Park the previous weekend, and if they weren't waiting for pickup on schedule, he stayed his train until they arrived safely.

His was an encyclopedic knowledge, not only of the railroad's lore and history, but of the geology, geographic, flora, and fauna of the narrow Animas River defile and the surrounding San Juan mountains.

Remembering his contribution

I'm told there is a plaque dedicated to the loving memory of Mr. Alva F. Lyons, trainmaster and conductor—born 1897, passed on 1990—affixed to the Durango depot for all to remember. I certainly remember him … though I had but a narrow window to know him, between being too young and then moving out of his sphere. He had a profound and lasting effect though we met but briefly.

I looked like this in the fifth grade.

I am grateful to Alva Lyons for his efforts to preserve the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad branch from Durango to Silverton, in the face of his Denver management's determination to slash not only the train but the entire line from their books.

He kept people coming back, he made newcomers feel welcome, he answered questions with knowledge and enjoyment, and he personally did an effective public relations campaign on the train's behalf.

Just two years after my encounter with Conductor Lyons, the Rio Grande admitted—by building twelve new narrow gauge coaches and adding a second train each day—the "defeat" of their initiative to abandon the branch. In a real sense, Alva Lyons ensured the line's longevity and predicted its escalating profitability.

I dedicate this web site to the memory of Conductor Alva F. Lyons. You honor him on my behalf when you remember that trains are bigger than cars and more dangerous; when you halt properly at grade crossing and "Stop, Look, and Listen."