This was our day to ride the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, a 3 foot narrow gauge remnant of the Denver and Rio Grande Western. We had originally planned to take the full route from Chama to Antonito, stopping for lunch in Osier, and riding the
bus back to Chama. (if you click on the map, you can get a bigger version).
After boarding the train, we were told that there had been a kitchen fire at the depot in Osier and offered us either a refund if we got off the train or half price but we would take the train to Cumbres where they could turn the train around and
get us back to Chama. We opted for the train ride, illustrated in the map below.
We arrived at Chama knowing there were no superchargers nearby so we rented a space at the Rio Chama RV park to charge the car overnight. Before going to the train, we walked the 20 minutes to get our car.
We took a lot of pictures. Some in the railroad yard before departure and many from the moving train showing both scenery and the train.
Our train was pulled by a K-36 steam engine. Here are two pictures of such engines. The one that is fired up and creating a lot of smoke is ours, but you can see the other one better,
There was a rotary snow plow, but a little difficult to photograph in all the smoke.
A Flanger is a maintainence vehicle that cleans between the rails, mostly used for ice and snow in the winter.
We had hoped to ride in the elegant Parlor Car, but it was sold out in mid July when Bruce ordered our tickets.
We were in the deluxe Tourist car.
We had a nice table and were next to windows that we could open.
We took a picture of the back of the Parlor car because Bruce wants to make a model copy of the shield on the back.
Our deluxe tourist car was next to the rear (parlor car behind us). When we were turning to the right, we could see much of the train out our window.
Sometimes the smoke was pretty heavy (they were burning coal).
At one point the engine seemed to be putting out white smoke instead of the dark smoke most often seen. We wondered if there was a new Pope.
Here is the Lobato trestle which we had just crossed. It is a steel treastle that spans a 100 foot deep chasm.
This promontory is named Kodak Rock because many photographers would climb to the top to get good pictures of the train. Sorry for the smoke.
To see more of our railroad adventure More Railroad Pictures Here
No picture of the dashboard because we didn't drive anywhere today.