Steam & Excursion > Week-long September C&TS Trip, Day 5: Ride to Toltec

Day 1: Antonito Arrival / Day 2: Chili Line Charter / Day 3: Working in Chama / Day 4: EB Surprise - Day 4: SLRG

Thursday, September 27 had a special assignment for those of us working on prep for the weekend's Friend's Charter. Two of us needed to go to Chama to assemble some doors for the RGS stock car and a couple other small items, and two of us needed to ride the daily train from Antonito to Toltec Creek, near the original Toltec townsite, to remove some trees and smaller brush that was threatening the planned runbys at that spot.

The team-leader and I were the two that were lucky enough to ride the train, so we loaded up all the tools we may have needed, and waited for the 10:00 departure.

Photo 1:
Flanger OJ received fresh lettering early in the week, and the morning light just begged for a picture.

Photo 2:
489 would be our leader for the day, here it is posed before loading would start.

Photo 3:
463 is in the siding at Toltec waiting for us to pass. They had the rest of the cars that were needed for the Saturday and Sunday portions of the charter.

And a-west we go!
~wko

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Photo 4:
A closer-up view of 463. Note the number is gone on the front of the smokebox door, meaning the railroad was halfway through transforming 463 to 453.

Photo 5:
A wide-view at Phantom Curve. This was about as perfect a day as we could get.

We arrived at Toltec Creek and they let us off, and we got to work. We figured we were there roughly 95 minutes, and we were huffing and puffing to get finished, thanks to the power tools we brought not cooperating with us (they had been working fine when we tested them the day before).

Photo 6:
487 leads the eastbound train to our location. The goal for me was to get all the little aspens blocking the first couple cars, but I only got about half done due to cutting them by hand.

Back east we go!
~wko

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Photo 7:
We drop down the grade approaching the Lava Tank.

Photo 8:
Often overlooked for the station, the parking lot is a nice, broad, well-lit shot.

Photo 9:
In Antonito, we look back on 494 sitting in the field, and "463" as a nice attraction for the little ones.

We would make it back to the CRF after most people were done for the day, and before the two other members of our team made it back from Chama, so that was it for the day. It was a beautiful day for a trainride, but we certainly had to earn it at Toltec, as that was hard, fast work! Day 6 will come either today or tomorrow, and was one of the busier days we had photo-wise.

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed!
~wko

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Yeah, while wko was riding around on the train, John and I had to go over to Chama and swap doors on an "RGS" stock car.  While RGS and D&RGW stock cars were mostly the same, the RGS had doors that were much different.  Earlier in the week we had built and painted the RGS doors in the Antonito CRF.  Since the RGS stock car would be on the cut of cars added for Monday's train that was originating out of Chama, we had to go to it to install them (The train consist changed every day over the 3 day excursions).  No photos from me that day.  We were busy!

I'm glad he got to ride.   I had my chance over the weekend, going by the site of Toltec Section House 3 days in a row.

Bill Kepner

Nice!

BB

Nice pics!!