Steam & Excursion > Steam Powered Trains Can Draw A Crowd Even In This Small Town!

Even today, the town of Aztec, New Mexico is a small town.  Back in June 1958, Aztec was even smaller yet.  However, on June 4, 1958 the small Aztec train depot managed to host a sizable crowd due to the arrival of Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge 2-8-2 #478 and her train of yellow passenger cars.

The event was an excursion on the narrow gauge on that fine spring day.  The train and the depot never looked so good as it did for the lucky passengers on that trip.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/19 03:47 by LoggerHogger.

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A really great photo in great time. With the car in the front and everyone dressed it almost looks like one of those photo shoots.  On the Farmington branch.

Thanks!!!  Bob

That was about the time that Aztec was one of the two busiest stations on the whole Rio Grande.

Out

Was this line not seeing trains at the time?  Rae miles?

saw trains till the NG was abandoned

coach Wrote:
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> Was this line not seeing trains at the time?  Rae
> miles?

Pipe line trains at this time???

Bob

There were quite a number of charter passenger trains run over the narrow gauge in the 1950-60's, but the vast majority ran between Alamosa, Durango & Silverton.  Only a handful ran on the Farmington Branch, as in comparison to the other routes, there wasn't much spectacualr scenery down that way.

The Rocky Mountain Railroad Club ran an annual 3-day trip over the narrow gauge over Memorial Day Weekend through the 50's and 60's.  All thier trips went to Silverton except one that had to go to Farmington because of high water on the Silverton Branch.  Most notedly, the Illini RR Club ran 4 day excursions from Alamosa that included Farmington.  The Illini trips started in Chicago and came to Denver then down to Alamosa.  Some of these trips started out of Chicago behind CB&Q steam. The particular trip seen here with 478 is I believe a 4-day trip put on by the Pacific Coast Chapter R&LHS who ran a connecting train from Los Angeles to Denver and Alamosa.

So, riding the Farmington Branch was a bit of a rare milage experience.  Aztec might have seen one passenger train a year.