Pulling hard just below Silver Plume. The Georgetown Loop Railroad's freshly restored IRCA Consolidation #111 is pretty much at her limit with a heavy passenger train as she claws her way up the steep grade below Morningstar Siding, just a couple of minutes from her destination of Silver Plume.
Friends who had recently visited the Georgetown Loop advised me to do some hiking in order to get the best shots of the place. Well, I did a bit of that and the combination of the elevation and a head cold coming on were really kicking me in the butt this day. After hiking downhill a couple of hundred feet, I realized that I was far from any trackage that would give me a front-lit shot anytime in the next several hours. After surveying the situation a bit and realizing there would be only 5 runs this day, I found myself a back-lit shot with some fall foliage and elected to try it. It turned out to be the best shot I would get all day....at least in my humble opinion. And oh yes, that is indeed snow that you see in the shadows behind the locomotive. Some of the dirt roads in Silver Plume were entirely covered with packed snow and ice on this early October day.
