The engineer and conductor check in with each other while 489 gets a drink at Cumbres Pass.

Serious clag ( smoke ) from a tripleheader.

Rounding Cumbres Loop. A 30-car D&RGW Freight Charter, organized by the Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, has just rounded the apex of the Cumbres Loop and is proceeding up ... (more)

Tripleheader blasts upgrade through western scenery. Quite a show.

A pair of 2-8-2s, including C&TS No. 488 and Rio Grande Southern-painted No. 455 tackle Cumbers Pass with a fall excursion train for Antonito, Colo.

On the pass at Lizard Head.... The long-extinct Rio Grande Southern railroad ran from Durango to Ridgway, Colorado, a distance of about 162 rail miles. Like the D&RGW Line between Chama a... (more)

Crew Shot

While summer suddenly disappeared this week in the American Southwest (note, not a good idea to camp with my current sleeping bags), 488 and its train lazily make their way down Cumbres Pass.

The daily train from Chama, NM reaches the summit of 10,015 ft. Cumbres Pass, in Colorado's San Juan mountains.

The improbable daily train keeping the lengthy segment of storied narrow gauge line from Antonito, CO to Chama, NM in active service comes steadily chuffing up the long valley as if unencumbered b... (more)

D&RGW 315 being turned near the snowshed at Cumbres Summit.

I didn't realize it at the time, how glad I would be to have pictures of K37 497 operating. Fast forward 23 years and who know if we will ever see 497 run again.

As the lead helper locomotive of a three-locomotive Rio Grande narrow gauge freight up Cumbres Pass, the crew of K-36 No. 489 looks back at the road locomotive crew taking on water on top of the p... (more)

DRGW 489 West leads a 23 car freight train around Windy Point in the late afternoon.

Denver & Rio Grande Western #489, a 1925 K36 mikado goes around the loop at Tanglefoot Curve with a 30 car freight train bound for Chama and ultimately the oilfields around Farmington, NM. This ch... (more)