Personal Projects, Photography, and Pointless Pontifications
Winter Steam on the San Luis & Rio Grande – Jan 15, 2011
Originally published Jan 30, 2011, on DRGW.Net
On Saturday, 15 Jan 2011, the San Luis & Rio Grande (aka the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad) ran another special. Since they had 18 hot anyway from an AAPRCO special the previous week, they decided to put it on the front of their regular Winter Wonderland train. This would make it 18’s first regularly-scheduled winter trip over the hill, as typically the winter trains get pulled by one of the diesels. As part of this, they threw in a run-by up at Fir. Of course I had to go… Given that there was only one run-by and it was a regularly-scheduled passenger run, there isn’t a lot to say. The equipment for this trip, from front to back eastbound leaving Alamosa, was SLRG 18, SLRG 3378 “Calumet Club”, SLRG 1394 “Deshka”, SLRG 551 “Kobuk”, and SLRG 1056 “Lookout Mountain”. Enjoy the handful of photos from the trip!
Prepping the train in the siding at Alamosa
It’s nearly time to depart – warm up those cylinders and get us moving! It’s not that cold, but still some nice steam effects.
Backing out of the siding so they can come up the main into the station for boarding.
And then coming down the main, with snow-covered mountains in the distant western sky.
In addition to being the first regular train over the hill in the winter, they also threw in a run-by up at Fir. We asked for light smoke, but then the safety lifted just as they started the run.
A little further through the run, and the safety closed.
Just a cool shot with the engine and snow climbing towards Fir
The run-by up the hill at Fir had some pretty tough backlighting, so it took a bit of playing to make this passable pseudo-HDR image out of the scene. That and I had to clone out some guy’s hand and camera.
Cutting away from the train in La Veta to wye the engine and take on water.
Flagging back across the main road in La Veta on the east leg of the wye. Time to go down to Charlie’s for ice cream while the crew gets ready to go west.
Speaking of taking on water, isn’t the pump supposed to put water in the tender, not on the ground? Yup, it broken, and delayed our departure by probably an hour getting enough water in the tender.
And in that time-honored tradition of steam locomotive crews, Carlos pulls out the Alemite gun and shoots the rod bearings
Tied on to pull west, the crew attends to some last minute maintenance before we head out.
All photographs in this trip report were taken with a Canon EOS 40D using either a Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS/USM, Sigma 18-50mm, or a Canon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS/USM.
