Looking better than ever....literally! After emerging from a decade-long restoration by shop forces from the Strasburg Rail Road, and the Colorado Railroad Museum, Rio Grande Southern Locomotive #20 helps an RGS freight extra as it works upgrade westbound on a late summer morning. The road engine this day is RGS #455, a K-27 Locomotive that was originally built for the D&RG and which joined the RGS roster in 1939. Unfortunately, the original 455 was scrapped in 1953, so the engine you see here is actually K-27 #463 lettered as 455. The 463 was no stranger to the RGS, having served on that line as well. This freight extra was run in August of 2021 for Trains Magazine and is picture here just west of Ferguson's Trestle at MP 285.87 on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad.
The recently restored RGS #20 does indeed look better than ever. In fact, just about everything in this photo looks better than anything did on the original RGS. From not long after the line was built in 1891 until it finally threw in the towel in 1952, finances were always a problem, and thus the condition of the equipment and the roughly 132 mile line itself were always "on the edge." About the best we could do to recreate the "patina" of the real RGS was to avoid washing the locomotives prior to this charter, so they didn't look too much like museum pieces.
