Out of Our Rut: Taos Part 2

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We knew we were going to have plenty of things to see and do in the Taos area of New Mexico for the 2 weeks we had planned to stay. One of the picks was to take a train ride on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. We had checked availability earlier and discovered that we could pick any day we like, so we waited for the day with the best weather forecast and booked our tickets. The train runs between Chama New Mexico and Antonito Colorado. It’s a 64 mile train ride one way through the southern Rocky Mountains. The trip takes too long for it to be offered as a round trip train ride, so they have various permutations of train and bus so you can get back to where you started. It’s over a 90 mile drive from our campground to Chama but only 60 mile north to Antonito so it was an easy choice to start from the Colorado end. In researching actual train ride, it sounds like the most scenic portion is the western portion out of Chama so it makes more sense to take the train that departs from there in order to be fresh for the best part of the ride. So we opt to do start in Antonito, take a bus ride to Chama and ride the train back to our car.

The biggest drawback with this plan is that we need to get up rather early to catch the bus at 8 AM. It’s a pretty easy drive on US Routes 64 and 285 into Antonito. What surprised us was how desolate and barren the landscape is along the drive - mostly just wide open high desert terrain with occasional distant mountain views. We arrive 15 minutes before our bus is to board so we have a chance to look around this terminal before we head out. The bus driver was washing off the coach so we would have a clean view. Once we board, we have about a little over an hour drive with the second portion being a beautiful mountain drive.

Retired Steam Locomotive in Antonito CO

Train Station in Antonito

Bus for First Part of Journey

We arrived at the Chama depot and discover that our bus load of 30 some people was a small portion of those going for the train ride. Most of the passenger cars were lined up but the workers were still getting the locomotives in position for the ride so we had a short wait before boarding the train. Our designated car was the “Big Horn II”.

Train Station in Chama NM

Our Train Car

One of Two Steam Locomotives for Train Ride

After boarding, we need to go to our assigned seats until the conductor comes by and punches our tickets. The passenger car we were in was actually fairly nice even though it was the least expensive coach class accommodation. The windows do open up so taking decent pictures would be possible from here but we decide to head back to the open air car which will give us much better visibility and from either side of the train since there really isn’t a “good” side and a “bad” side since the view changes along the route.

Coach Class Seating

And We're Off

View from Open Air Car

There was a docent on board that helps to narrate the trip and provide information about the train, the surrounding mountains and lots of other history from the area. He was a retired attorney that lives in the area and now volunteers with the railroad. I guess that is one way to ensure you get to ride the train often. He has a wireless microphone and the open air car has speakers on each corner so it is pretty easy to hear him even with the train and wind noise.

Two Steam Locomotives Up Front

Old Farm Cabin

At the 4.5 mile point, we slow to a stop. Our docent explains there isn’t a problem but simply we have gotten to the Lobato Trestle, 100 feet above Wolf Creek. This bridge is rather old and cannot handle the weight of two locomotives at the same time. So the train stops, the lead locomotive decouples and crosses the bridge. Then the second locomotive pulls us across the bridge and reattaches to the lead locomotive.

Our Part of Train Crosses Lobato Trestle

Reconnecting Extra Locomotive

The first 13.5 miles of the trip out of Chama is all uphill, rising over 2150 feet. This equates to a 3% average grade although the steepest point is closer to 4.5% grade. The docent explained that the start of the train season had been delayed this year be a use of the high fire threat from the coal powered locomotives. Yesterday was the first train ride with passengers and he had the pleasure of being the docent on that ride too. The problem was there had been a little rain yesterday so the tracks were wet. They had initially only used one locomotive for the climb out of Chama and they found out that there wasn’t enough friction for one locomotive to pull the number of passenger cars. They had backed down the track and tried again only to have a similar problem just a bit further up the track. So they backed down yet again but this time they tied in the second locomotive. Needless to say, that train ride was quite delayed and many of the passengers got off after coming back to Chama.

Both Locomotives Under Heavy Load

Old Water Tower

There are several crossings with roads during the first third of the ride. It seems that there are a fair number of cars with people standing by the road watching the train go by. One of the vehicles we consistently see is a small fire truck owned by the railroad. The docent explains that this person and truck follows every train over that portion of the ride. His job is to pay attention to the smokestack shooting up embers that might start a fire. He has a lot of gear and water at his disposal to put out a small fire before it becomes a big problem.

Cars Wait at Crossing

Fire Truck Shadows Us

It is definitely a pretty train ride. It sounds like it’s even prettier in the fall, but those dates book up and are going to be much more crowded on the train. At about 8.5 miles, we cross into Colorado.

Nice View

It takes us about 2 hours to get to the highest point along the route at the Cumbres Pass section house. We stop here while the lead locomotive decouples having done its job of assisting the train up the steep portion of the ride. The crew also comes out to check on the brakes of each car since the remaining 50 miles is all downhill and brakes are important for this part of the trip. Several people with bicycles disembark here so there must be even more train riding options than we were aware of. I bet it’s and exhilarating ride back into Chama from here. Since we have a bit of a break, we head back to our seats to rest some before the train starts up again.

Approaching Cumbres Pass

Old Train Station at Pass

Fancy Metalwork For Overhead Racks

As we pull out from the stop, the ever present fire truck watches our progress. But with one fewer locomotive and heading downhill, I suspect the fire risk drops somewhat.

Pulling Out from Combres Pass

Down to a Single Locomotive

Shortly after coming from the pass, we enter the first of many extreme curves on this railroad- Tanglefoot Curve. In order to deal with a 39 foot elevation change, the track makes a large loop of well over a mile with a 300 foot radius which permits use to easily see the rest of the train. At one point the two tracks are only 75 feet from each other.

Entering Tanglefoot Curve

Our Former Lead Locomotive Heads to Antonito

Shortly after passing by the Los Pinos water tank, we come into another 300 foot radius turn. We definitely slow down considerably for these parts of the track. It’s here that I first notice a very small vehicle following us on the track. Apparently this is the second fire prevention safeguard. A small powered train car is pulling a 200 gallon tank of water. Once the train reaches the section of the ride where there aren’t roads, the fire truck that’s been following is no longer able to watch for fires, so this vehicle becomes the one to watch out for burning embers.

Los Pinos Water Tank

Fire Prevention "Train" Follows Us

We follow along a small river for some time. There are a few house along here but it looks like they might be tough to get to.

Rio de Los Pinos

At 25.5 miles, we reach Osier Station. It’s been over 3 hours on the train and this is the lunch stop. We will be stopped for about an hour as we all get off the train and head into the large building that has a pretty good spread of food setup buffet style. We load our plates and find a seat.

Osier Station Across Valley

Coming in to Osier

Horses Watch Us Arrive

After we finish eating, we head outside to checkout some of the other buildings. We spot the fire train so we are able to get a closer view.

Close Up View of Fire Prevention Train

Water Tower at Osier Station

Historic Depot Building

Surprisingly, there is a geocache hidden nearby. It doesn’t get very many finders and we are the first since this past winter. It seems to have survived another winter and is ready for others to find. We finish up looking around Osier Station and get back aboard for the rest of the ride into Antonito.

Inside Old Depot

Ready to Board After Lunch Stop

I’ll admit that after eating a large meal, I was more in need of a nap than sightseeing from a train, but headed back out to the open air car.

About 29 miles into the ride, we hit a stretch of sights. First was the underwhelming monument for President Garfield followed by a nice (but scary) view of Toltec Gorge and then the first of two tunnels - this one named the Rock Tunnel. It’s about 360 feet long blasted through rock.

President Garfield Monument

Looking Down Toltec Goarge

There are some interesting rock formations in the Phantom Curve area. There is also a section that appears to be prone to mud and rock slides and occasionally the train will be forced to stop for the crew to clear the tracks.

Odd Rock Formation Along Tracks

Mud Slide Area

The second tunnel is called Mud Tunnel. It appears to have a bit more support structure holding it up.

More Hoodoo Formations

Structure Entering Mud Tunnel

The train ride continues to be quite pretty with some incredible views of the gorge for the river below.

We stop again at the Sublette Section House for the crew to do another brake check.

Approaching Another Curve

We only go a few more miles when we stop again and we see the crew out looking at the train wheels. We suspect there might actually be a problem with the brakes on one of the cars.

But we start up again so all must be good. Or so we hoped. We stop again at about the 45 mile point at a place calls the Big Horn Wye. It’s at this point we are told we have a “hot box” problem on one of the cars. The docent said that this is when a wheel bearing has failed and repairs can be between 20 minutes to a couple hours!

Fortunately the train was far from full with passengers, so instead of waiting to fix the bearing, they would simply remove the problematic car from the train, leave it at the wye which has other track options and we can resume our journey to Antonito.

Removing the Train Car with Hot Box Issue

Less Mountainous Terrain

Shortly after this we will do several state line crossings between New Mexico and Colorado. The full train journey will have a total of 11 crossings. Some are less than a quarter mile apart.

Some of the Multiple State Line Crossing

Back to New Mexico

The last 9 miles were definitely the least interesting. Mostly barren landscape with some distance views of the mountains.

Closer to Antonito

Another Water Tank

We did spot a couple of elk but they were pretty far from the train and running fast. I’ve highlighted them in the photo just to point them out. It was definitely to a good train ride for wildlife spotting.

Two Elk Barely Visible in Distance

When we finally arrived back at the terminal in Antonito, we were very tired. We started the train ride nearly 8 hours earlier and about 64 miles ago. But that doesn’t include the hourlong bus ride and hourlong drive from camp. Plus we still have another hour to get back home.

So what did we learn about the train ride. We definitely picked the right approach by having the pretty section occur first. Had we done the train ride in reverse, we would have been too worn out to enjoy the beautiful sections closer to Chama. If you plan on sitting for the bulk of the ride, you may not get as tired as we did out in the sun and wind and needing to balance on our feet as the train rattled and rolled down the track. But the flip side of that is your views will not be as good as from the open air car. The other thing that helped me was I had loaded my Garmin handheld GPS with the route in advance. That way I was able to look at the screen and see when turns to the left or right were coming up. That way I could move to the correct side of the train to get the better views. The docent did a reasonable job of giving us heads up, but I knew for sure what was coming. I also don’t know if his narration was played on speakers in the rest of the cars - I assume so but don’t know that for a fact. Since I had my Garmin turned on for the full train ride, I have included the route imported to Google Earth. Besides the route itself being the red line on the map, it also includes a graph with the elevation in red and the speed in blue.

Train Ride Route with Elevation and Speed Plots Below

The next day we head out for two things: one was to find a geocache in the county we drove through a few days ago on our way from Las Vegas NM to Taos but was unable to stop with the motorhome. It was a bit of a drive but we managed to stop at an old mill that was being restored so we couldn’t truly visit it but we did find a cache a a nearby cemetery.

Old Mill Under Renovation

The second thing was to do a short hike at Amole Canyon. The South Loop Trail is only 2.5 miles long and just a couple hundred feet of elevation gain. The trailhead parking lot is about half a mile of the main road but the gravel road to it is in pretty decent shape.

View Near Parking at Amole Canyon

The trailhead parking lot starts by following the gravel road a bit beyond the parking lot, before turning to the south and following a hiking trail around a large loop. It was a pleasant walk but not with lots of great views or sights along the way. A basic walk in the woods which is fine with us.