Hey hey USA - 4th November - the Toltec Railroad

 


We drove through Chama and were pleasantly surprised to come across a train terminal with station buildings and locomotives. The station at Chama is the western terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway. This is a stream driven heritage railway which operates during the summer months, taking tourists the 64 miles between Antonito and Chama. The railroad is all that is left from the Denver and Rio Grande Railway extension running from Alamosa Colorado, west to Chama New Mexico and then on to Durango Colorado. The railway is narrow gauge as it was cheaper to build and also the trains can take sharper bends. The track had to be taken through two tunnels, over a 10,015 mountain pass and around a 600 ft gorge! It was used to transport minerals and then oil and lumber. However the Cumbres Pass proved problematic. In the winter the area can get as much as 500 inches of snow. The company bought two rotary snow ploughs which are still in Chama but in the winter of 1951 - 1952 the snow storms were so great and so expensive to deal with that the line was eventually discontinued as a commercial service.

We had a good poke around the railway yard which had lying snow and was quite cold before we set off again, also towards Antonita and over the Cumbres Pass.


Coming into Chama










One of the snow ploughs








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 11th June - we go ashore in Village Bay

Image
  We had had a good night anchored just off shore in Village Bay on Hirta,  St Kilda's main island. When we woke up the sky was clear and the visibility good and I felt very proud of being able to make a panorama of the shore from the slightly rolling boat. There was one other small yacht tied up in the bay. The other yacht in the bay with Stac Levenish in the background In the panorama, if you enlarge the picture, you can see the bay, the sandy shore, with the military buildings at the front of the shoreline, the old village spread out some way behind and then a jumble of walls and stones going off into the distance. However by the time we had had breakfast and got out in the dinghy to go on land a fog had descended limiting our views of the hills. It seemed good though to explore in the conditions that must prevail on St Kilda most of the time! As we climbed the jetty I noticed some kelp in the water that looked just like a fish skeleton. St Kilda had been inhabited by man since
Read more

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 8th June - we go aboard in Oban

Image
  We have never booked a holiday a year in advance before so the anticipation leading up to our sea trip on yacht Zuza was immense. We had arrived in Oban the night before and at the appointed hour (2.00pm) we wheeled all our luggage, far too much with cameras, a laptop, walking boots and Alan's, new to him, yachting trousers and jacket recently purchased from eBay, down the jetty and onto the boat. The good ship Zuza is a Bermudan cutter rig ship built in 1998 as an expedition boat for the Royal Geographical Society. She is 22m long and weighs a  goodly 42 tonnes. When we were on her there were 3 crew and 8 guests who occupied two twin bunk cabins and two double en suite ones. I was too late to get a double cabin so we were in a twin. With a saloon and a covered wheel house she was perfect to take us all the way to St Kilda and then around some of the Hebrides. Bear with me while I introduce everyone. Neil was the Captain, Erin the First Mate, and Grosia the chef. Neil was very la
Read more

A weekend in the Dingle, a damp drive and exciting lichen

Image
We woke to a drizzle the day after our 'Tom Crean experience'. We had not enlisted for the Tom Crean 19 mile endurance walk, and luckily that was sold out anyway, and given the weather would not have been pleasant by any yardstick. Instead we did what any old codger would do under the circumstances and go for a drive. The Slea Head Drive to be more precise and part of what the Dingle tourist board call the 'Wild Atlantic Way'. Wet and wild that particular Saturday. It is manners to drive clockwise around this circular route as the road is very narrow and cars coming the other way, as a couple did, cause all the traffic to snarl up. We started in Dingle where we stopped briefly by the harbour, before continuing until we shortly came to a museum. It was a private, commercial sort of venture, run by an American and called the Celtic and Prehistory Museum. And it was actually very interesting, containing some animal skeletons and stone axes and other such artefacts. Th
Read more

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 10th June - Lochmaddy to St Kilda

Image
It was going to be another long day's sail to get to St Kilda. Neil, probably not wanting to get us up too early again, made a 7.00am start. As we're going to be crossing more open water and as I am not a particularly good sailor I did take drugs that morning. They didn't quite work but staved off the worst. The only problem was the side effect of sleepiness and, while we were motoring along, various bodies could be seen lying on the deck snoozing in the sunshine. We had a stowaway on board who stayed with us for a while. Caroline and Grosia attempted to feed him, which he appreciated. We turned west into the Sound of Harris which was an almost mystical channel in the soft light. We saw more dolphin which I ignominiously failed to photograph. There were some cormorants on a rocky outcrop and a strange buoy which was being swept by the current. Once we were clear of the channel and heading west I was excited to see that the chart told me we were in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Read more