Little Trains – Big Mountains (July 2007 Trip Report)
Arrived home Sunday evening and am rather tired from a four-day solo ‘railfan junket’. My wife says it’s because I tried to execute a 25 year old’s schedule with a 45 year old body. She may be right but the fact is, one must work to have this much fun.
Just the facts – Wednesday, July 18: I flew from Charlotte, NC to Colorado Springs, CO with a change in Cincinnati (well……Northern Kentucky). It was a flight. In Colorado Springs I picked up a rental car and drove 165 miles to Alamosa where I checked in at the Comfort Inn. The hotel was nearly new, everything worked, and the staff was pleasant and helpful. The bed was too mushy for my taste but that’s the risk you run even in reputable chains. I went back downtown, dodging a major road construction project, for supper at a sandwich shop, went back to my room, left a 6:00am call, and went to bed.
The wake-up call was really not necessary. Between my body being on Eastern Time and the excitement of the trip, I was wide-awake by 4:30am on Thursday, July 19. I rolled out of bed, showered, dressed, had breakfast, and checked out by 7:15am. From there I drove 30 miles south to Antonito, CO which is the eastern terminus of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, a 64 mile long remnant of the former Denver & Rio Grande Narrow Gauge empire. It is amazing to me that the narrow gauge line from Alamosa to Antonito and onward to Chama, Durango, and Silverton (with a spur to Farmington, NM) survived in regular service with their 1920’s vintage locomotives until December 1968.
The history of these lines fascinates me but I’ll not dwell on that. Instead I’ll focus on what I did….. and that was Trip Itinerary #3. More specifically, that was board a bus at the Antonito train station at 8:30am for a 70-minute bus ride to Chama, NM….the western terminus of the Cumbres & Toltec. In Chama I boarded the train, which was scheduled to depart at 10:00am.
(Their operation involves a train departing daily during the season at 10:00am from either end of the line. The two trains meet for a lunch stop at Osier, CO and passengers may either ride one train round trip to the lunch stop and back, change trains at the lunch stop and continue onward to the far end of the line where you catch a bus back, or, as I did, take the bus ride first and spend the rest of the day coming back on the train.)
Being a Thursday, the railroad also offers a shorter 4-hour trip for families with young children. Called the ‘Cinder Bear Express’ this trains’ 7 car consist is combined with our regular 8 car consist for the first 75 minutes of the trip up to Cumbres Pass. Because the grade is 3% to 4% for this part of the trip, two steam locomotives coupled nose to tail will be required to get our train up the mountain. Shortly after tickets were checked I made my way out onto the open gondola. This is a wooden narrow gauge freight car suitable for hauling steel pipes OR passengers who have lathered on the sunscreen and don’t mind standing up for the trip up to Cumbres Pass while getting showered with cinders. The stack talk from these two locomotives coupled with Rocky Mountain scenery was just stunning and I didn’t mind the sun or the cinders! Midway up the hill we cross the state line into Colorado. It is the first of 11 times that we will meander across the Colorado-New Mexico state line. I have ridden the Cumbres & Toltec three times now and, in all honesty, if I were given just one more day on earth to spend as a railfan, the Cumbres & Toltec is where I would spend it. Anyone with an interest in steam locomotives, the evolution of passenger trains, the old west, or the Rocky Mountains in general will find something thrilling in this ride.
At the summit, 10,000 foot Cumbres Pass, the two locomotives are watered. The first locomotive is removed and it chuffs off to the wye-track for turning. The ‘Cinder Bear’ passengers are detrained and will be served lunch at Cumbres. Afterwards, they will return to Chama by 2:30pm on the rear 7 cars. Meanwhile, we pull away with our locomotive and remaining 8 cars. We have an hour of drifting downgrade through a pristine high alpine meadow (but with a few hairpin curves) to Osier, CO where volunteers have worked to restore a few of the historic railroad buildings and stock pens. There is also a relatively new ‘lunch hall’ built in the late 1980’s. Lunch is included in the price of your train ticket and currently passengers may choose from a meatloaf line, a turkey and dressing line, or a soup and salad line. There are hot dogs for the kids and the food (I had the turkey) is surprisingly good. Passengers who ride the train originating in Chama usually make it to the lunch stop first and I had just taken a seat with my tray when the Antonito train chuffed in barely 30 feet from my window. If that didn’t evoke images of pre-Fred Harvey passenger railroading, nothing will.
Following lunch I boarded the Antonito-bound train which was a car shorter than the one I had come up on. Passengers on the Cumbres & Toltec who only are doing half the railroad generally do the Chama side as it is perceived as being ‘more scenic’. What they miss though is the trip through the Toltec Gorge where the train is clinging to a ledge 600 feet above the river and a mere 800 feet away from the rock face on the opposite side of the gorge. The engineer plays with the whistle here and it echoes back at us sharply an instant later. In the gorge we pass a monument to US President James Garfield. Legend has it that the monument is in this place because the construction of the railroad had proceeded to this ledge high above the river when news of Garfield’s assassination reached them. From the monument the train passes through the first of two tunnels and spends the next hour or so clinging to the side of one mountain ridge after another. Water is taken at the old railroad town of Sublette, NM and then the train begins dropping out of the Rockies back to the high plains. Pretty pine trees give way to scraggy sagebrush and the train just chuffs along at a steady 18-22 mph. Frankly, the last hour or so into Antonito is totally anticlimactic. A book might be a good idea through here. Others may prefer the Antonito departure. Myself, I prefer the train out of Chama for the dramatic sounds the locomotive makes getting up the mountain. No matter how spectacular the trip, after lunch and toward mid-afternoon “are-we-there-yet-it is” sets in and seasoned travelers will want to read or seek the conversation of other passengers. It’s better to do this during the sagebrush part of the trip and I prefer to do that toward the end of the day after I’ve gotten tired and dirty.
We arrived in Antonito on time at 4:30pm and I was immediately in the car for the 170-mile drive westward (via Alamosa, South Fork, and Pagosa Springs) to Durango, CO. The first 80 miles of this were to have been relatively flat, straight, and fast driving. No such luck. I encountered violent thunderstorms with pea-sized hail and where I had expected to drive 65 – 70 mph (in 65 zones), I averaged more like 35-40. I had company on the drive between Monte Vista and South Fork…….to my right the out-of-service west end of the former Rio Grande Railroad’s STANDARD gauge rail line was right beside the road. Parked on this line was a string of surplus TTX flat cars. Every 12 cars or so there was a 15 foot gap and then there was always another string of flat cars. Grade crossings were left clear and it was obvious that these cars had been there for some time. This went on for 30 miles……30 MILES of stored flat cars. Roadside businesses that happened to be across the tracks BEHIND the rail cars had started incorporating this unwanted scrap metal into their signage. A little internet research turns up that the owner of the short-line railroad that now operates these lines from Monte Vista eastward has a contract to store these flat cars with the owner TTX. $2.00 per linear foot per year with a minimum of two years (expiring in spring 2008) but with an option to extend for three more. The owner intends to use this storage revenue to expand their fledgling tourist operation…..more on the tourist operation later as I rode it on Saturday! Of course enemies have been made with the local citizenry by parking unwanted flat cars in their communities.
From South Fork, CO US 160 becomes a mountain highway. Up, up, up for 15-20 miles to 11,000-foot Wolf Creek Pass and then down another 15 or so miles on the other side, through Pagosa Springs and on to Durango. I spotted the Golden Dragon recommended by Train Lady, a Trainweb Regular en-route to my room at the Econo-Lodge. (Folks, in Durango in July, even the Econo-Lodge starts at $95.00 per night). Because of the rains, I arrived around 8:15pm……more than an hour later than I had expected. I checked in, went next door to KFC for a couple of pieces of chicken, and collapsed into bed by 9:45pm…….nearly midnight to my jetlagged body! (Sorry Connie, I was just too tired and grungy to clean myself up for a ‘nice’ place!) The Econo-Lodge was an early 1970’s vintage motor hotel, which had undergone a recent and interesting renovation. It was adequate but had my wife and daughter been making the trip, I would have looked for something nicer. My wake-up call was for 6:15am Friday, July 19 and, again, I was wide-awake an hour before that. I did the morning stuff, packed, loaded, and checked out of the hotel about 7:00am and drove downtown where I parked in the Durango & Silverton lot (for $7.00…..all day……parking here is HARD to find. Advice is come early, get a spot, and don’t leave it!). I locked the car and headed next door for breakfast at McDonald’s……..so I had flown 2,000 miles and driven another 300 for a McDonald’s breakfast, right? Wrong! The Durango McDonald’s is adjacent to the yard where the Durango & Silverton trains are maintained and boarded. Where else can you be interrupted from your Egg McMuffin by a narrow gauge steam locomotive chuffing by your window?
The Durango & Silverton shares it’s heritage with the Cumbres & Toltec but the similarities pretty much end there. C&T is a rustic operation like it was back in the day. The Durango & Silverton is an ‘innovator’ building newer (and higher ticket priced) cars to attract more customers. Their equipment and facilities are maintained as well as could be expected for equipment that is, in most cases 80 to 125 years old. It is important to note that the 45-mile Durango to Silverton branch is unique in that it was never abandoned. The petition by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in 1967 to abandon the remaining narrow gauge notably excluded the Silverton branch, which had already begun drawing healthy tourist ridership. The big freight railroad continued operating the Silverton steam train as a separate business unit until finally selling out to private interests who renamed it the Durango & Silverton in 1982.
(By contrast, the Cumbres & Toltec section WAS abandoned following a final train on December 6, 1968. Those tracks were left in place and were bought jointly by the states of Colorado and New Mexico in 1970. Tourist operations commenced in 1971.)
The scenic highlight of the Durango & Silverton may be the narrow ledge where the train clings 400 feet above a raging river. The ‘highline’ ride is a popular daytrip for people wanting to experience narrow gauge, mountain railroading as part of a longer family vacation and the D&S carries many times the number of passengers each year than who make their way to the more obscure towns of Chama or Antonito. During the peak season there are four passenger trains daily (the earliest at 7:30am) departing Durango for Silverton roughly every 45 minutes apart.
Each train takes about three and a half hours each way and allows a two-hour layover in Silverton where lunch is an ‘on-your-own’ deal. You’re advised to eat right away because unless you leave on the 9:45am train, another trainload with 12 cars of hungry riders is going to pull in and you don’t want to contend with that. (You’ll eat better on the C&T!) For what it’s worth, Silverton is what it is…..NOT a movie set but the authentic remnants of a once flourishing mining town. The trains roll in on a dusty (or muddy when it rains) street and come to a stop between two rows of buildings with wooden sidewalks. It could easily be 1895 for all you know….except for the fudge and t-shirt shops. Walk the couple of blocks to the heart of town and look at the turn-of-the century architecture. This is no stuffy preservation. These buildings are here doing what they do because that’s what they have and this place is too isolated to have changed all that much in the last century.
The Durango trains do offer a return by bus option but you have to ask the agent about it. During the winter season they even operate a single daily train as far as Cascade Canyon……slightly more than halfway to Silverton…..and back.
I had booked a seat on the 9:00am Silverton train because this particular schedule is carrying one of those unique cars I mentioned earlier. The new ‘Silver Vista’ is an open-sided gondola but with a glass roof. (The new ‘Silver Vista’ faithfully recreates a homebuilt car that was used on the mixed Durango to Silverton train from 1947 until it burned in a shop fire in 1953.) In most places a glass roof is just ‘window dressing’ but on the upper end of this railroad the tracks are running close by the river through a narrow valley with 13,000 foot peaks towering overhead. The extra-fare ‘Silver Vista’ passengers are the only ones on board who can actually see the tops of these mountains without sticking their heads way out the window…..something discouraged by the train crews as some of the rock facings are very close to the train.
The view from the special car was exquisite and our car host did a wonderful job of making the trip enjoyable…..particularly on the return trip when a cold Rocky Mountain rain began falling and blowing in on us through the open windws. I managed by adding a second long-sleeve shirt and putting on a water-resistant windbreaker that came from the online Amtrak Store! While I was mildly uncomfortable, I wasn’t miserable. The car host renamed the car ‘Shiver Vista’, added that we were fortunate that it wasn’t cold enough to snow, and brought each of us large cups of coffee or hot chocolate from the Parlor Car immediately behind us. It was a good trip and I was reluctant to leave the train behind when we returned to Durango.
Back on the ground at 6:30pm, I returned to the rental car and began the 150-mile drive back to Alamosa. I didn’t hang around town at all because I was eager to get over the Wolf Creek Pass before dark. Yeah……I grew up in Western North Carolina and have been driving on mountain roads since Drivers Ed in high school…….but there is something different about mountain roads in Colorado. Something menacing. Maybe it has to do with an old Jack Nicholson movie but I wanted to be OFF the mountain by dark. I made it with 10 minutes to spare! Back in Alamosa I returned to the Comfort Inn I had been at on Wednesday. I had a different room with a bed a little less mushy than the first night. It was 9:30pm and I finally grabbed supper at the Wendy’s down the street.
(Note – The schedule played out the way it did because I specifically wanted to be at the Cumbres & Toltec on Thursday for the double-headed steam trip up the mountain. Had it not been for that, I would have started at Durango and worked eastward instead of running back and forth each night.)
I did not leave a wake-up call for Saturday, July 21 for I did not need one. Today’s train was departing from downtown Alamosa less than a couple of miles away. Even by sleeping until my internal clock woke me up, I still had plenty of time to make it for my 9:00am train. Today’s carrier was to be the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad operating over the lines of the San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad. This is a short line spun off by the Union Pacific. It was originally part of the Denver & Rio Grande’s narrow gauge empire but was widened to standard gauge when it became apparent that the wider tracks were the future. The line over La Veta Pass between Blanca and Walsenburg, CO is now the San Luis Valley’s only railroad connection to the outside world. Today’s trip will be an all-day roundtrip from Alamosa eastward over the pass and down the other side to the town of La Veta 61 miles distant.
As a relatively new tourist operation, the four passenger cars on our train were a hodge-podge collection. There was a streamliner era Railway Post Office Car that was outfitted with a snack bar and souvenir stand, a coach where the seats were all gone and replaced by wooden church pews facing outward, one coach originally built for the Long Island Railroad with the dreaded 2 and 3 fixed plastic seating, and finally, another former LIRR car but one that has been converted to a Parlor Car in the rear with a bar, cushy seats, and a big rear window looking back at where you had been. The two former LIRR cars had sealed windows, which became a problem later in the day when the electrical power failed and air-conditioning was lost. The church pew car was, I think, one that I first encountered on excursions for the Clinchfield Railroad back in the 1970’s…..the windows in that car would open and their style was consistent with those on the old Clinchfield trips.
Pulling our train would be a husky ex-Southern Pacific 2-6-0 steam locomotive numbered 1744. The husky part would be important. We left Alamosa on time with a full train, the 2nd and 3rd cars having been chartered by the alumni association of Adams State College in Alamosa as part of their summer reunion activities. For the first hour or so we clipped along on mostly flat, straight, track through sagebrush territory. Speeds reached up to about 35mph and the locomotive sounded good. At Blanca we passed the junction with the now abandoned Southern San Luis Valley Railroad (Colorado’s loneliest!) and began to climb upgrade. The engine was working noticeably harder and our speed dropped accordingly. Soon the sagebrush gave way to pine trees and then one of those high altitude Colorado meadows with lush green grass and a herd of elk being startled as our train intruded on their world. The tracks looped around the valley to gain altitude over and over again. Finally, we reached the siding at Fir and ground to halt. Trainmen got out and checked under every car. Was something wrong with the train? No. They were just checking the brakes. A good thing because upon leaving Fir we rolled through a small cut (the La Veta summit) and began down a steady, often 3%, grade for the next 18 miles into the town of La Veta. I wish that I could describe how remarkable this piece of mountain railroad was. Suffice to say for those of you who have frequented the California Zephyr that this pass is the equal of anything you will see from the Zephyr…..the route over Donner Pass or Soldier Summit have nothing on the La Veta pass line. I’m thinking that La Veta has been relatively obscure because it is off the beaten path, the rail line that uses it dead ends in the San Luis Valley, and scheduled passenger service over the pass ended in the 1950’s.
We chuffed into La Veta shortly after noon and climbed down from the train. The Adams State College folks were having a catered picnic in the park adjacent to the tracks. The rest of us trudged across the street to grab lunch at one of a handful of restaurants that were open in this historic and trendy little town. (Trendy as in there are stores on Main Street selling pottery and incense and there were tourists there who had not come in on the train.) I had a very nice lunch at the La Veta Inn, which is a historic hotel now an 18-room bed and breakfast with restaurant located across the park from the train station.
After lunch, we reboarded our train at 2:00pm. It took until 2:20pm before everyone was rounded up and we were clear to depart (with experience the folks running this train will get more efficient with the lunch stops as are both the Cumbres & Toltec and Durango & Silverton.) My seat was in the coach half of the Parlor car which meant that I was now in the first car of the train. Only the locomotive was turned. Cumbres & Toltec likewise turns only their locomotives at the end of the day. The conductor had pulled the windowpanes out of the four emergency window exits and the car was tolerable…..so long as the train was moving.
We charged upgrade into the mountains and were not doing badly……..until about two thirds of our way up to the summit. About 12 miles in the grade stiffens and there had been a thunderstorm during our lunch stop. The rails were wet, the train was loaded to capacity, and the 1744 leaned into a curve and the wheels slipped. The slippage meant the locomotive had lost traction and with a heavy train on a steep grade wheel slips are a bad thing. They slipped often for the next 20-30 minutes and our speed dropped down to probably 3 to 5 mph. Someone could have climbed down faster and won a race with our train just by walking. Having seen bears in the area on the outbound morning trip, however, no one volunteered to get out and walk.
Fortunately the train did not stall and come to a complete stop. If it had, I’m not sure that the 1744 could have gotten us started moving upgrade again. We did get over the top. We did make it down the other side. We did get back to Alamosa about 45 minutes behind schedule. No one complained about being late though…..it was a good day.
The Rio Grande Scenic is pretty much in a catch-22 situation. They are able to run longer, diesel-powered trips over La Veta on weekdays. For steam to be economically feasible, they need to carry more than four cars full of passengers…..but I think four passenger cars may be the most the 1744 can get over the hump without diesel assistance. Personally, I was thrilled to have ridden over this mountain behind steam because by the next time I go out to this area the Rio Grande Scenic, if it makes it, will likely be putting longer trains over the La Veta Pass using diesel assistance behind the steam locomotive.
After the trip I was off on another 160-mile drive back to Colorado Springs. I got into my hotel, left a wake-up call for 4:45am, and went to bed. The following morning I checked out and made a nocturnal drive to the airport for my flight back to Charlotte, NC via Atlanta. It was a flight. I got home. So did my luggage. I’ll go see the little Colorado mountain trains again someday…..but next time I’ll spend more time in each location!
Posted by HopefulRailUser (Member # 4513) on :
Thanks David, an excellent report. Very interesting and it did sound like a lot of work but worth it!
Posted by notelvis (Member # 3071) on :
quote:Originally posted by HopefulRailUser: Thanks David, an excellent report. Very interesting and it did sound like a lot of work but worth it!
And there were ponies. I forgot to add the part about the ponies!
Posted by Southwest Chief (Member # 1227) on :
Great report!
The Silver Vista doesn't have pull down shades? The real one did, I guess they forgot to add them to the new one. It's almost certain you'll get an afternoon rain shower from mid July to late August...it's the monsoon season.
The best time for a trip on the Silverton line is in early to mid June. Pretty rare to get rain that time of year.
I know what you mean about menacing Colorado mountain roads. Might be the lack of guardrails supposedly omitted for snowplowing.
Glad you came to visit colorful Colorado, come back again soon.
Posted by train lady (Member # 3920) on :
Really great report, David. I especially enjoyed it because due to my problem with altitude sickness those were trips I had to forego. I also know what you mean about the Colorado Mountains. The worst mountain road andwe have been on some really wicked ones, was the Going To the Sun in Glacier National Park. I was a total wreck by the time we got down and my husband who is a veteran mountain driver was clutching the wheel for dear life. PS did you see any bagpipers the way they do in Nova Scotia at Cape Breton. There they Pipe you along.
Posted by notelvis (Member # 3071) on :
Thanks all for your response.
If I can figure out how to post a few photos on the forum I have a couple of the 'new' Silver Vista for you Matt.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
David Really enjoyed your report and hope to duplicate most of it in a few weeks. One question - I notice my ticket on the Cumbres and Toltec has a seat assignment. Do they really do that? If so how can I determine if I'm on the good (right) side leaving Chama. Isn't there also an excursion out of Blanca, Co - can't remember the name, maybe San Luis Central.
Really looking forward to Colorado as 110 degrees in Badlands yesterday. Cooler today in Black Hills.
Posted by notelvis (Member # 3071) on :
Hey Palmland,
Cumbres & Toltec tickets - Yes. They want you in your seat when the train departs Chama. A representative from the Osier Kitchen (lunch providers) will come through and ask whether you prefer the turkey, meatloaf, or soup/salad for lunch. They are pretty swift though and I get the impression that if the train isn't full you're pretty much left to your own devices once you've had your head counted for lunch. I was able to get out to the gondola before we reached Lobato.....and you DO want to be in the gondola by the time you reach Lobato. THAT'S where the fun really starts. Yes.....the right side is better. Don't even think of moving back inside until after Tanglefoot Curve. After lunch you move into the Toltec Gorge immediately and you'll likely want to move outside again.
I'm not sure if this is consistent throughout the train but the coach I was assigned to out of Chama had about 44 seats....those numbered 1 to 20 or 22 were on the right side, those above were on the left. I had a seat #1 in the Antonito train and it also was on the right.
After lunch we had a ticket snafu in our car (not involving my seat) on the Antonito train where four people had been assigned the same two seats. The conductor resolved it by saying "the rear coach is empty if anyone would like to sit back there!"
At no point during the day did any member of the train crew actually check my ticket.....which was a surprisingly small piece of paper.
The Rio Grande Scenic Railroad trip out of Alamosa to La Veta passes through Blanca. The freight operation on this railroad is now the San Luis and Rio Grande. I'm thinking this may be the trip you're thinking of. It's certainly worth a look if you have time.
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
thanks David - good to know. Sorry for the delayed response but just got internet access in the Tetons after a week out in the bushes.
mike
Posted by heyitsme_23 (Member # 7217) on :
Nice, I will be heading south to durango this fall to ride the famous train, driving over the passes you can look down into the canyon and see it, and the drive is just as scary and exciting, if not more so. Now that I know of the Cumbres & Toltec I think I will check it out.
Posted by ellenorigby (Member # 9414) on :
Pennsylvania has many tourist railroads and I bought a book with many of them in.....when I retire I hope to ride them all, but I'm starting way before that to begin the journey. Luckily for me the train I take to the PA capital takes you on the world famous horseshoe curve.....
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
Very enjoyable narrative, David!
I hope, one of these days, to take the Cumbres & Toltec.
Friends of mine, and I, did take the Silverton & Durango train about 14 years ago. Back then, they did not have the Parlor car and Silver Vista cars. It was a great and very scenic trip. We picked up a publication called, "Cinders and Smoke", about the Durango/Silverton train,...an interesting read.
Too bad you had jet lag during your initial night in Durango. There are some interesting things to see. We stayed in the Strater Hotel..pricey but worth it. Wherever one stays, I recommend the Diamond Belle saloon, in the Strater Hotel, for good music and fun.
For anyone coming from the west, I suggest taking the California Zephyr to Grand Junction, CO, renting a car, and driving from Grand Junction to Durango. Highway 550, from the town of Montrose to Durango, is considered one of the most scenic drives in the country. Be sure and stop at the old mining town of Ouray, sometimes called the "Switzerland of America".
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supposedly omitted for snowplowing.