On the pass at Lizard Head. Although I attend numerous historic re-creation events every year, the vast majority of the photos we take still have pretty obvious clues in them that they were made in the 21st century. This one is a bit of an exception. Numerous historic photos of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad depict various Motors (aka Galloping Geese) sitting inside or adjacent to the massive snow shed that completely covered the wye on the 10,250 ft. pass at Lizard Head (RGS Milepost 52.61). With that in mind, during a 2018 visit to the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, the crew of RGS Goose #5 took a few moments to back their machine up to the snow shed segment that exists on the Cumbres Pass Wye (MP 330.7), allowing photographers who happened to be there to capture some photos which look stunningly similar to ones taken back in the late 1940s and early 50s. In this scene, #5s Conductor has thrown the switch to put his Motor on the west leg of the wye, which will get them facing downhill for the trip back to Chama. Given the Boreal Forest look of the surrounding landscape and the rustic look of the snow shed, this image looks very much like it could have been taken back in the day on the RGS. About all we needed to add would be a sign lettered for "Lizard Head".
