June 29, 1951: RGS - ??? to Trout Lake

According to Ed, the original plan for this excursion was to ride the RGS out of Durango, but a bridge washout forced them to take a bus to Montrose on the 28th and ride the north end of the RGS on the 29th. I'm going to need some help with locations here. I don't know much about the RGS, don't have any books about it, and despite some great online resources like [www.rgsrr.com] and [www.riograndesouthern.com] , I still can't identify some scenes. I don't even know (and Ed can't recollect) exactly where they started, though the photos seem to pick up somewhere south of Vance Jct./Telluride.

43. This view of a water tank appears to be the first slide Ed took on the RGS portion of the trip. It's slide frame number is 35 while the next view of the Galloping Geese is frame 1 of a new roll. A list of RGS tanks is here:

[riograndesouthern.com]

The ladder placement and scenery tells me it's not the well photographed tank at Brown or the tank at the Coke Ovens. The trip doesn't appear to have gone further south than Lizard Head summit, so my best guess is it's either Deep Creek or Ames. Anybody know for sure?


44. This looks to be a photo runby on RGS bridge 44A, the "Butterfly Trestle" below Ophir. Geese 4, 3 and 5 are visible. According to this old thread, the bridge survived into the later 60's before being bulldozed to salvage the timbers.

[ngdiscussion.net]

These maps show where the bridge was located:

[davesriogrande.net]
[goo.gl]



45. Another view of the runby with geese 3, 5, and 7 in the frame.


46. Photo stop at Trout Lake tank. This tank still exists, along with bridge 51A where the tracks crossed the Lake Fork of the South San Miguel River and turned back up the other side of the valley:

[www.narrowgauge.org]



47. Looking down on Trout Lake, the tank is visible to the right.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2016 05:33AM by Evan_Werkema.