Los Pinos Trainset. From this perspective, this Cumbres & Toltec excursion train really does look like sweet G-scale garden layout as she rounds the hairpin curve at the north end of the Los Pinos Valley. The former DRGW line from Chama, NM to Antonito, CO takes lots of serious detours over the course of its 64 mile run in an effort to keep the grades manageable at 4% or less. In this shot, the train is in the midst of a roughly 5-mile detour, running 2.5 miles north along the Los Pinos Valley, only to round the hairpin you see here and run an equivalent distance back south within plain sight of the tracks it has just traversed. This particular train is making the eastbound run toward Osier and Antonito and is pretty much drifting downhill. When the train coming west toward Chama appears here in a couple of hours, she'll be barking up a storm, laying down a much more impressive plume and probably slipping the tires a bit.
The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad are all that remains of the legendary Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge system. Here you'll find some of my favorites from these two beautiful railways.
