Re: Excursion Questions on the D&RGW NG

Depends on the trip you are asking about.
(1) The one Dave Grandt mentioned that had 67 was a very unique trip like no other. A group from California came by train I believe and arrived in Alamosa. From there they had a 5-day trip. They started on Day 1, by taking the San Juan Alamosa to Durango. Some extra coaches were added to handle the extra people. There was even a runby at Rock Tunnel. I have all the dates somewhere but it was 1947. Day two was a roundtip on the Silverton Mixed, with some of their cars added to the freight. Day 3 was on the Rio Grande Southern from Durango to Ridgeway, and day 4 was back to Durango on the RGS. The final day was Durango back to Alamosa on the San Juan. Portions of the two days on the RGS is in our "Rio Grande Southern Memories" video. I plan on using the other material in the future on the Ala-Silverton videos.
(2) As Russ mentioned the photos pretty much illustrate the typical consists between Alamosa and Durango. My dad rode one in 1954, that had nearly all Green Coaches. By the time I was riding in 1956 they were all grande gold. The 1954 trip was three days, including a day Ala-Dgo, day two to Silverton and back, day three back to Alamosa. In 1956 the trip I did was a two-day trip, without Silverton. There have also been trips to Farmington instead of Silverton, including when there were some washouts north(west) of Durango.
(3) Generally these trains were single engine Alamosa-Dgo, but a helper was used from Chama-Cumbres on the return trips. These trips ended in 1966.
Greg Scholl