Riding and Chasing the 1966 RMRRC Alamosa-Silverton Excursion

On May 28-29-30, 1966, the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club ran their last annual Rio Grande narrow gauge 3-day excursion. I rode the train for three days, and Ernie Robart chased days 1 and 2. Ernie had ridden days 1 and 2 in 1964 and days 2 and 3 in 1985 and was chasing this year. This thread combines our photos from the 1966 excursion to present a more complete perspective.

Note; I made a start at posting the 1966 trip on its 57th anniversary in May 2023, but found that that time of the year is far too busy to spend much time on the scanner and computer, so I am starting again while it is snowing heavily outside and the distractions are fewer.

I want to thank Wes Pfarner of the Friends of C&TS for providing a selection of Ernie's photos from the Historical Collection maintained by the Friends at ngtrainpics.photoshelter.com/gallery-collection/Robart-Collection (or simply go to Friends of Cumbres &Toltec Scenic Railroad Historical Collections). The scanning of those thousands of photos by Ernie and other photographers surely represents a monumental effort by Wes for preserving the history of the narrow gauge.

Day 0, May 27, 1966

On the day before the excursion I spent the morning loading up my 1964 VW beetle with the gear needed for spending the summer in Colorado, working at Climax Molybdenum, and then headed for Alamosa. In the meantime Ernie spent that day chasing 492 making a Farmington turn from Durango.



The RMRRC had drawn a full trainload of fans with this attractive flyer:



For Day1 the flyer laid out a 12 hour run from Alamosa to Durango



By mid morning 483 was moving right along, crossing the Hangman Trestle west of Antonito



A few minutes later the train was crossing the rough road to Big Horn and the little trestle that is no more, having been replaced by a culvert





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2024 04:08PM by Olaf Rasmussen.