Reading through the dog-eared pages of various popular railroad magazines in the 1960s and ’70s, I marveled at the beautiful photographs of the old Denver & Rio Grande narrow gauge lines. Those photos always featured the battle of the railroad against something insurmountable, be it the mountains, snow, or tonnage. For me, John Gruber’s photo essay in the October 1969 issue of Trains was very inspirational. The final page of his article, “Extra 498 and 493 West,” said it all: “And so the narrow gauge gets in the blood and will not out.” It still holds true for me to this day. My first encounter with the former Rio Grande narrow gauge lines was in July 1977 for one of the very first photo freight charters held on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railway. I had good guides traveling with Victor Hand, Harold Edmonson, and Don Phillips. I felt like an out-of-place pup following around the “big shooters,” but during the excursion I learned a lot about maps, sun angles, and location, location, location. I listened to the stories of the trials and tribulations of photographing the last freight operations in the final years of regular service. Subsequent charters over the years filled more voids
of photo locations
and angles that I wanted with various locomotives, and consists. I have always craved that “next trip West” to journey back in time once again on historical recreations hosted by the Durango &
46 DECEMBER 2015 •
RAILFAN.COM
TOP: Silhouetted against the morning sunrise, we find a westbound crossing Ferguson’s Trestle on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad in September 2015.
ABOVE: The surface of the beaver pond at Coxo trembles as a K-36 class Mikado blasts eastbound up the 4 percent grade toward Cumbres Pass with maximum tonnage on a 2008 fan trip.
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