Just sharing some old vacation photos such as these from 1992. Does this get your water boiling and steamed up for Narrow Gauge fun in the sun yet? More Images on this and other railroads can be found in my RailImages gallery.
Geez I long to go to the States,I can almost smell that coal smoke & steam,thanks for the pic's Darren,this is the closest I can get to the real thing!K-36 #482! The owner is a top bloke,Bruce McClintock & currently has the loco up for sale so I'm enjoying every run as much as I can.
Hopefully the C&T is all recovered from it's past couple of seasons with the fire shutdowns, etc. I'd like to see some fresh photos of them in action. Hmmm. Well, I'd like to get down that way some day myself. Before gas gets up to $99.95 a pint. Boxcab E50
Want to really smell experience the steam & smoke, try being in the open car at this point in the ride.
Since Boxcab asked about how the C&T is doing now, here is a short report from our visit there in July. I'm glad to say it seems to be doing fine. I originally wrote this post and posted it over at another board where I also hang out. I hope there's no breach in board etiquette in cross posting it here also. Okay, finally got around to editing and selecting a few photos from the trip, and uploaded the first few to Rail Images, where I keep my rail photos. These are from the Cumbres & Toltec portion of the trip. What I’m posting here are the shots I’ve uploaded to RailImages. The photos have been reduced in resolution from what I have at home on the computer. The link to my photos there is (I think) www.railimages.com/gallery/edmurphy. The line goes from Chama, New Mexico to Antonito, Colorado. The train runs one way each day (they run two trains on weekends, one each way, no trains on Fridays). We were there on a Tuesday so the train was going Chama to Antonito. Since we were staying in Antonito, we got on the bus at the Antonito depot at 08:15, and it ran us over to Chama where we arrived at about 09:30, with a little time available to walk around and take photos before boarding the train. Those staying in Chama got to sleep late, but then had to take thebus back to Chama from Antonito after the trip. Here’s me and the wife in front of our engine, K-36 class 2-8-2 #487 built by Baldwin in 1925. I’m fascinated by the motion of the counterweights on these outside frame locomotives. Chama is at 7863 feet above sea level. The line runs up over Cumbres Pass, elevation 10,015, then down to Antonito at 7,888. Total distance is about 64 miles. Here’s a view of the train working it’s way around a curve on the way up. There are two types of accomodations, coach and a nicer (and pricier) parlor car. There’s also an open air gondola that anyone can spend time in (no seats). We bought the cheap seats and I spent 98% of my time in the gondola anyway. There’s also a concession car that sells snacks and souvenirs. We had 4 coaches, one concession car, one parlor car and one gondola on our trip. It was sold out. They did add two more cars for the following day’s trip, so I guess they do adjust somewhat for expected traffic. The train makes a lunch stop at Osier, which is about half way (time wise). There’s a big restaurant and the buffet lunch is included in the ticket price. Food was plentiful and pretty good. There was plenty of time to eat. On the Chama-Antonito run you have steeper grades going up to the summit, but a longer downgrade between the pass and Antonito. Here we are crossing Cascade Trestle, just before getting to Osier. You can tell we’re on the downslope as the engine is obviously not working as hard. If you go Antonito to Chama you spend more time climbing, but not as steep grades. The last hour of our run was out on the flatland west of Antonito. Lots of people were dozing off by then, but not your reporter. I wanted to savor every last wisp of coal smoke. Here’s the train running out along the flats. At Antonito I ran into a guy who said he had been part of the crew that built most of the coaches back around 20 years ago. They were custom built on old flatcar frames. It’s not apparent in these photos, but when you look closely at them, and compare them to some of the obviously original coaches they still have around, you van see the difference. The original cars tend to have clerestories and the deep channel beams are under the center of the cars. The newer cars have simple rounded roofs and have deep side beam channels. We watched them switch the train after the run was over. Missed seeing them load coal in the tender (they have a ramp and use a front end loader at Antonito – Chama actually has a coaling tower). But we did catch them taking on water the next morning. And we delayed starting the next leg of our trip until 10:00 the next morning when the train pulled out of Antonito heading back for Chama so I could get a more classic view. From here we drove to Chama, where we walked around the facilities for quite a while. One of the great things about the C&T is that they let you walk virtually anywhere on the property if you’re a ticket holder. As you can see, I’m not making a living as a railroad photographer, but these will do nicely for the family, thank you very much. We did get the DVD and the book (Ticket to Toltec) so if I want to see the good stuff, I’ve got it handy. By the way, we stayed virtually next to the depot in Antonito at the Narrow Guage Railroad Inn. It was a decent place, and very convenient. The Cumbres&Toltec has a group called “Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad”. They’re actually organized and are the group that runs the trains. This is a non-profit organization, by the way, with the right-of-way owned by the states of Colorado and New Mexico. Members of the “Friends” can even come up for work sessions during the summer (at their own expense) and take part in reconstruction/maintenance projects on the line. Their brochure says that they get 350 members who come up and take part, and they apparently have six one week long sessions. Some also serve as docents (guides) on the trips. I’m sorely tempted to think seriously about doing something like that next year. I think their website is www.cumbrestoltec.org. Anyway, that’s a quick overview of the C&T portion of the vacation. Still to come, the Durango & Silveron. Did I say I enjoyed it??? Regards Ed
Ed, welcome to Trainboard, and thanks for that in-depth report. I just HAVE to get there to the C&T again. Your photos bring out the railfanning desire.
Ed- Welcome aboard! No problem "cross-posting" here. We all hang out at different places on the 'Net, and don't always see stuff uploaded elsewhere. Great report! Boxcab E50
