RGS: Great Steam Excursions, maybe the greatest.

I was watching some old 16mm footage of one of the Rocky Club's excursions over the RGS just prior to abandonment. The locomotive powering the excursion was #74 and they used two small "bobber" cabooses, about three NG gondolas and there was a passenger car bringing up the rear. I would suspect that there were at least a hundred passengers on this excursion.

I think this may have been the greatest steam excursion ever, and here's why: beautiful untouched scenery, high trestles, beautiful blue water of Trout Lake, Telluride before it was a ski bum town, and it was truly historical. The open gondolas offered great views of all of it. There are some photos of this excursion at the DPS web site, showing the date of the excursion to be September 2, 1951. San Juan mountain scenery is hard to beat.

The DVD on which this footage was recorded was from Green Frog productions.

Jim Burrill