I posted this on the Goat, I will also post it here in case you haven't
seen it before.
Greetings,
Last weekend my wife and I went to Chama,NM to ride the Cumbres and
Toltec season opener.
We left Colorado Springs Friday afternoon and drove in wind, snow and rain.
We stopped in Antonito,Co to see what was going on. 488 and 19 were
sitting in the yard soaking up some sunshine.
On the climb to Cumbres Pass the sun broke through the clouds and it's rays illuminated the trees that were covered in fresh snow. At the top of the pass the tracks were covered with over a foot of snow.
We got into Chama just before sundown and took a couple photos of
things in town.
On Saturday morning I went to the yard and took some shots of things with fresh snow on the ground. After a couple hours the crew rolled the 484 out of the barn and dumped the ashes and then topped off the tender with water and coal.
The cool thing about being there Saturday morning is that a lot of the
chairmen of the board were on hand for opening day along with the
Mayor of the Village of Chama.
Also the son of one of the directors of the railroad, who is in the
Marines, brought a US Flag to fly over the yard for the season.
Five whistle blasts and five rounds were fired from a Korean Veterans Rifle to honor the 5 branches of the service before the ribbon cutting.
It was very neat to see this and to be reminded of what this country has been through.
After the ceremony we boarded the train and had one of the neatest trips up the line.
The rails were covered most of the way to the top of the pass and this caused the train to slip and stall.
We made it within 3 and a 1/2 miles to the top before we stalled for
the last time.
The crew tied the train down and cut the locomotive off and ran lite
up to the top to clear the line and top off with water and to add 14 bags of sand.
About an hour later they returned and we charged up the line slipping
very little.
From there the trip to Oiser,Co was pretty calm.
The return trip was a piece of cake, plus we had the 488 with the
large snowplow.
Sunday morning the sun was shinning and most of the snow at the lower level melted before the train left town. The chase was great and the 488 sounded awesome working up the line.
After the train made the curve at Los Pinos we said goodbye to the narrow gauge steam and headed over to La Veta Pass to wait for the San Luis & Rio Grande #18 to pass on it's trip from La Veta back to Alamosa.
The afternoon Alamosa to La Veta train passed by with the last F40
they have on the railroad.
Three weeks ago the 18 was painted for the Rio Grande but has since been repainted with a green boiler jacket and "Rio Grande Scenic RR" on the tender.
It was an awesome weekend, sun burn and all.
Here is the album,
[
picasaweb.google.com]
Nathan Z
