Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad

Friday morning we left the campground early - 7:37 am was the departure time assigned to us by Jan! Six still sleepy people climbed into Jan & Wes's truck and we began our adventure for the day. By the time we arrived in Antonito, about 15 minutes later, we were awake and excited to get on with our train adventure.

The first part of our trip was by bus from Antonito, CO to Chama, NM departing at 8:30 am. The drive was very scenic, especially going up and over the pass (I forgot the name) that was over 10,000 feet. The only drawback to the ride was that the mountains where shrouded in clouds, so that meant that part of the time we rode in foggy conditions. Some deer were spotted on the other side of the bus, of course. The only "wild" animals we saw on our side were cows and horses.

We arrived in Chama just shortly before 10 am - just enough time for potty calls and a couple of pictures. We boarded the train for what was to become a very exciting, 64 mile long train ride on a historic narrow gauge railroad line that was built in the late 1800's.

NOTE: The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad is America's longest and highest narrow gauge railroad.

We started out from Chama on a 4% grade that would eventually take us to 10,015 feet in elevation at Cumbres Pass. The steam (coal fired) engine huffed and puffed it's way along the tracks and we were doing really good until we had to stop for cows on the track! Well, let me tell you, getting started again was fun. Because of the moisture in the morning air, the tracks were wet and the engineer had a very difficult time getting traction on the rails. This caused the train to go backward several times as he tried to get us going forward. There was a work car ahead of us, and they workers on it came back and spread sand on the tracks to enable the train to finally get traction and we were off again. During this time, I was outside on the open car and the historian was telling us that up to a couple of years ago, it was not unusual for the train to have up to six derailments per trip! Now that was a scary thought. Especially in the areas where the tracks where just barely hanging along side a cliff! He explained how the work crew would get the derailed car back on track - sure glad that didn't happen to us.

True to it's name, the train ride is very scenic. Around every curve, and there are many, many curves, there is something different.

Here is a copy of the map of the train route - you can see just how many curves there are....

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Our stop for lunch was at Osier. This used to be a toll station on the road from Conejos to Chama. It was once a small community with a store and rooming house for travelers. Today it is a lunch stop for the Cumbres & Toltec RR passengers which is included in the price of the ticket. We had our choice between a turkey dinner, a meatloaf dinner or soup and salad. It was served cafeteria style, but was all you can eat. Dean and I chose the homemade meatloaf dinner (very good) and with it we got mashed potato's, mac n cheese, corn, peas, roll, drink and desert - some of the best coconut custard pie I've had in a long time.

After lunch we boarded a different train for the rest of the ride back to Antonito. This took us through Toltec Gorge where we were 600 feet above the Rio de Los Pinos River, through Rock Tunnel which was bored through 360 feet of solid rock, around Phantom Curve and through Mud Tunnel at 342 feet. During the ride from Chama, NM to Antonito, CO we crossed the Colorado/New Mexico 11 times - sure glad this is the USA and we didn't need a passport!

The only things that I will say I didn't like about this adventure is that it was just a bit to long and the seats on the second train were very uncomfortable, at least to me. There is also a lot of movement of the train cars - side to side and bumpy. Other than that, it has to be one of the best steam train rides we have taken and the scenery can't be found anyplace else. Would I do it again, probably in a couple of years, but I'd do the shorter trip.

We arrived back in Antonito, CO around 4:15 pm and I think all six of us were tired. I know it was a early night to bed for us.

I took over 150 pictures during our train ride and still need to sort through most of them. I should be able to get them posted sometime later today so check back at http://picasaweb.google.com/SchultzTravelPhotos for new pictures. UPDATE - POSTED