• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

A wonderful trip to northern New Mexico

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
On a recent long weekend Carla and I took a wonderful driving trip to northern New Mexico. The excuse was to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary, and Father's Day as well.

Our first port of call was the charming town of Chama, N.M., almost on the border with Colorado. From there we rode the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad (C&TS), a steam-powered historic narrow-gauge (36 in/914 mm gauge) railroad that runs 64 miles from Chama to Antonito, Colorado. The line is part of what was once the San Juan Extension of the Denver & Rio Grand Western Railroad. The line passes through some of the most spectacular mountain and forest scenery you can imagine.

I'll start by talking about our locomotive, beginning with this:

G07289-01-S800.jpg


Photographer unknown (a kind volunteer): Doug and Carla in front of C&TS 489

The arrangement at the Chama terminal did not facilitate a good shot of the entire locomotive, so I'll skip ahead and show her at work along the way:

Q07489-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Around the curve

You can see here the "doghouse" atop the tender. "In the day" this was the "office" of the train brakeman (on a hand-fired locomotive such as this there was no place in the cab for the brakeman to "hang out" - the available space on the deck was occupied by the fireman shoveling coal from the tender into the locomotive firebox). From the doghouse the brakeman could overlook the entire train to be alert for any "inadvertences" (smoke coming from an overheated wheel bearing, etc.).

489 is one of the C&TS' "flagship fleet", a narrow-gauge version of the famous 2-8-2 "Mikado" type. The type got its nickname when the first serious order of the new design was made by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Japanese National Railways, "Mikado" being of course the then-title of the emperor of Japan and a name familiar to many Westerners by way of the well-loved Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, "The Mikado".

In 1925, Baldwin built ten of the narrow-gauge version of this type (known as the K-36) for the Denver & Rio Grande Western, for use on their narrow-gauge San Juan Extension. Amazingly, nine of these are in operation today, five of them on the C&TS (including our 489) and four on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, another historical railroad operating in southern Colorado not too far from the C&TS. The tenth of the batch "fell into" a turntable pit at the Salida, Colorado yard in 1953 and was deemed only suitable to be cannibalized for parts.

Some narrow-gauge steam locomotives are substantially smaller than their standard-gauge brethren, and often follow the same basic design, just scaled down. But the narrow-gauge Mikado was larger than proportionate to the gauge (although still smaller than the standard-gauge version). This led to an interesting design.

On the most familiar steam locomotive design, the driving wheels (drivers) are located outside the frame rails. The crank pins are set into the drivers themselves, which then became the cranks. Cast into the drivers are counterweights, needed to balance the mass of the main connecting rod and side rods. We see that in this photo of a standard-gauge Mikado:

wpaac07773_05_06.jpg


Standard-gauge 2-8-2 Mikado ("light" version)

In the narrow-gauge version of the Mikado, the driving wheels are set inside the frame rails. Of course, they cannot then serve as cranks. Instead, outside the frame rails, on the shafts that carry the drivers, are separate counterweights, which carry the crank pins and are therefore the cranks. We see that in this picture of C&TS 489:

Q07442-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Narrow-gauge Mikado counterweights

[To be continued]
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
First, congrats Doug and Carla in looking after each other so well and braving another travel adventure together. After my nap, (HVAC is down and it is 87 degrees F, so sleep comes easilly), I will read about the narrow gauge railway.

Meanwhile, thanks for the pictures!

Asher
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
[Part 2]

Just before the scheduled departure time of 10:00 am, the traditional four blasts of the locomotive's whistle signaled "all aboard". Here Carla does just that:

Q07461-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Carla boards "car B"

We rode in "Deluxe Tourist" class (in a car set up like a dining car) and had a nice two-top on the south side (by far the best scenery):

Q07462-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: The height of comfort

Our car attendant was a delightful young woman from Chama, although a student at University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. She works on the train every summer. Here we see her passing out some delicious pastries:

Q07472-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Pure sweetness

As we passed through hilly pasture lands before encountering the serious mountains we saw a number of herd of elk:

Q07559-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: I think these guys are from Lodge 71

But before long we were in some serious mountains:

Q07584-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: A serious chasm

[continued]
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
[Part 3]

By the way, the route of the train (in the direction we rode it) is generally eastward along the New Mexico - Colorado border, but it actually crosses the border 11 times along the way.

About halfway along the route the train stopped at the "ghost town" of Osier, Colorado, where we had lunch. Osier had once been a thriving small village (a "railroad town") along the toll road that was the predecessor of the railroad line. Now all that is there is the old train depot, a water tank, and the new cafeteria and gift shop (very nice):

Q07564-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Left door if you want the turkey dinner, right door for meatloaf

The people who don't seem to want either are going into the gift shop. Me, I always have the turkey dinner.

This was my first chance to get a fairly full shot of our car - I did not have a good vantage point at the Chama depot. But it was still a 3/4 shot - ahead to the right was a sharp dropoff into a serious valley.

Q07568-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Car "B". car 510. the "Antonito"

Just in front of our car is an open gondola car in which one can stand to enjoy open air railroading.

Here Carla returns from checking out the old depot.

Q07576-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Four toots: flagman return from west or south

The second half of the trip was largely through high scrub desert (just like at home). Every so often the track was crossed by a pair of ruts that was evidently what passed out there for a road, always with the standard set of crossing signs ("crossbucks"):

Q07598-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Grade crossing, high desert style

We were able to see this one from the train as the track doubled back and forth in a "switchback" arrangement to gain altitude at a modest grade (4%).

Before there was radio communication, communication between trains and the dispatchers and such was by a chain of telephones in small wood cabins, strung out along an open-wire line. At "Lava", all there was was a water tower, a telephone box, and a loop by which rail snowplows could turn around.

Q07603-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Greater metropolitan Lava, New Mexico

Next: we go to Los Alamos.

[continued]
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What is the temp? Any Air conditioning or you rely on opening the Windows?

Presumablly the train does not take cars!

Asher
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Asher,

What is the temp? Any Air conditioning or you rely on opening the Windows?
I don't know what the outside air temperature was during the trip. The only air conditioning on the train was "nature's own"; we kept the windows open the entire trip, and for most of the trip the breeze was cool and comfortable.

In perhaps the last third of the trip, in the mid-afternoon and when when our elevation was lower (perhaps only 8000 ft MSL or so), the breeze became a little warm, but we were never uncomfortable from the heat.

Meanwhile, back home in Alamogordo, N.M. (at an elevation of about 4500 ft MSL), the peak temperature that afternoon was 105° F. Over the past few days, the highest observed by my weather station was 113.3° F.

Presumably the train does not take cars!

No, it is not an "auto train". The consist was:
• Locomotive (489)
• Passenger/Service car ("Coach" class, with regular railroad car seats, but also had a section for trip supplies and the galley for snacks and such)
• Passenger car ("Coach" class)
• Open gondola car (with longitudinal benches) so one could really enjoy the outdoors. But one had to have a seat in one of the regular cars
• Passenger car ("Deluxe tourist" class; set up with tables like a dining car, four-tops on the left side and two-tops on the right) (that's where we rode)
• Passenger car (Parlor car, very fancy, for "Parlor" class)

I did not mention this in my report proper, but on the excursion we took, we rode the train from Chama, N.M. to Antonito, Colorado, which took about five hours end-to-end, including perhaps one hour for the lunch stop at Osier. Then we rode a spiffy motor coach from Antonito back to the depot at Chama, which took a little over an hour!

The online brochure says of the Parlor Car:

Personal attendants serve a continental breakfast of fresh fruit, delectable confections, fresh coffee, hot chocolate, and your choice of juices. There are snacks and soft drinks available throughout the afternoon and passengers receive a complimentary souvenir.

But in fact in out Deluxe Tourist car we had essentially the same!

Incidentally, the "rack rate" for our excursion in Deluxe Tourist class is USD 155.75 per adult.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Jarmo Juntunen

Well-known member
Congratulations Doug and Carla! You make such a wonderful couple! And thank you for the pictures, that train ride looks like great fun.
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Jarmo,

Congratulations Doug and Carla! You make such a wonderful couple!
Thank you so much. I am very fortunate to have such a wonderful woman in my life!

And thank you for the pictures, that train ride looks like great fun.

It really was.

I will be posting pictures from later phases of our adventure shortly!

Best regards,

Doug
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
[Section B, part 1]

On Saturday, we drove south from Chama to Los Alamos, N.M., about 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe, which would be our base of operations for the remainder of our adventure. Along this route, especially just north of the small town of Abiquiú, are some of the most fabulous geological formations imaginable. Sadly, though a combination of bad luck and bad planning, I wasn't able to shoot many of the formations I would have liked to. But here is one that I thought was especially fascinating:

Q07644-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Standing watch

This is not nearly as stunning in form, but the color striations are just amazing:

Q07649-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Layers and layers

Los Alamos itself is unique. The town was founded in early 1943 ("in the middle of noplace") as "Project Y", the primary development laboratory, under the Manhattan Project, for the atomic bomb. Until well after the end of World War II, the town was completely closed; it was fenced in, and no one could enter without serious credentials.

After the end of World War II control of the laboratory (by then known as Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and the town was transferred from the United States Army to a new civilian agency, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The Army wanted the town to remain closed, but the AEC felt it was inappropriate for there to be a "closed town" in the United States, so it arranged for the various laboratory compounds to be secured and the town itself to be "opened" (which essentially was completed in 1950). Some say, "So it could become an ordinary town", but of course Los Alamos could never be "ordinary".

Here we see the entrance to the town on the single road approaching it from the east. The watch tower (no longer used) is the most modern one from the era of transition to a truly "open" town.

Q07664-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Entering Los Alamos

In a small park just near this entrance to the town is a rather-precise replica of the earlier guard shack that used to be at the entrance to the town, now serving as a restroom building:

Q07705-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Replica of the original Los Alamos guard shack

Today Los Alamos is a beautiful city of about 13,000 population. It has one of the nation's best school systems and one of the greatest densities of persons with advanced degrees, often in science, engineering, or mathematics. There are numerous cultural facilities. It is neat and clean, almost as if designed and built by Walt Disney (but not so corny).

There is a wonderful historical museum, which gives great insight into the origins of the town, plus a wonderful science museum.

A cute fact: The birth certificates of all the children born in Los Alamos during its "fully closed" era show the person's place of birth as "P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe, N.M.".

On Monday evening, Carla and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary and Father's Day with a wonderful dinner at the Blue Window Bistro restaurant in Santa Fe:

G07504-01-S800.jpg


Name of photographer unknown: A lovely dinner

[to be continued]
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
[Section B, part 2]

Very near Los Alamos is Bandelier National Monument. Its fascinating geology was mainly formed by the eruption of a gigantic volcano over one million years ago. The ejected dust and ash settled and then, over many years, coalesced into rock, called volcanic tuff. As we might suspect, it is relatively soft, and its resistance to erosion varies widely, and thus over the years many interesting geological features emerged, most notably small caves and cubbyholes.

On Monday we visited the Monument, but on the way we stopped at the small town of White Rock, N.M., in effect a suburb of Los Alamos. At the edge of town is a nice park, the central feature of which is "Lookout Point", a spot from which one can see the valley of the Rio Grande as well as many fabulous mountain formations.

Here we see the Rio Grande to the north of the point (running southward, to our right):

Q07680-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Rio Grande from Lookout Point

To give some idea of the context, here we see Carla regarding the vista from very near the sharp dropoff that marks the edge of the mesa on which White Rock is located:

Q07685-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Carla regards the vista from Lookout Point

She reminded me that about five years ago she would have sat on the very edge of the precipice and dangled her feet into the valley.

At Bandelier, Carla set out over one of the main trails, while I sat in the Visitors Center and told war stories to the rangers.

Just a few thousand years ago, the Bandelier area was home to the Ancestral Pueblo peoples, which had migrated here from the less-hospitable climate of the Four Corners Area (named for the point where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah all meet, a singular situation for the U.S.).

They built elaborate multiple dwelling complexes and individual buildings. Many of the residents slept at night in caves that were made made starting with smaller natural caves crested by erosion of soft pockets of the volcanic tuff. These caves are called "cavates", a coined word formed from the overlap of"cave" and "excavate". Here we see a cavate and its entrance ladder:

G07488-01-S800.jpg


Carla C. Kerr: Cavate with ladder

Some cavates were entered by a series of steps (footholds, actually) carved into the vertical face of the cliff.

Nearby is the ruins (well reconstructed by conservators) of a substantial house, built on a shelf above the foot of the cliff:

G07487-01-S800.jpg


Carla C. Kerr: Talus House

This is called "Talus House" (actually, the term is also used to describe all houses of this situation) because it is built in the pile of rock fragments (talus) that collected just below a cliff of this soft volcanic tuff. The house itself is of adobe brick construction.

From her location at the shelf where Talus House was located, Carla got a good view of the remains of a large multiple dwelling complex, Tyuonyi village, that had been built by the Ancestral Pueblo inhabitants of the area.

G07476-01-S800.jpg


Carla C. Kerr: Ruins of Tyuonyi village

[to be continued]
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
[Section B, part 3]

On Tuesday morning, we took a curated tour of the Abiquiú, N.M. home and studio of famed painter (and occasionally sculptor) Georgia O'Keefe. We had passed through tiny Abiquiú on our initial drive from Alamogordo to Chama, and the town was especially (in)famous at that time as just the day before a deranged fellow on a killing spree shot and killed a passerby at Bode's General store in Abiquiú. (Overall, the fellow murdered five people, three of them members of his own family. He was apprehended by the authorities.)

The tour began at the tour office just a short distance from the home and studio site, to which we were taken by shuttle bus. Here we see the tour office:

G07506-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Georgia O'Keefe Home and Studio tour office

The home is beautiful, and portions date back to the 1730s. We were not permitted to take any photographs inside the home itself (the operative word is "inside" - hold that thought).

This is one of the main gates into the house "compound", a gate large enough that wagons could enter but with a "pedestrian" gate embedded in it:

G07518-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Vehicle and pedestrian gate

In the compound were wonderful flower and vegetable gardens, which were irrigated on a fixed schedule of water allotment by way of the traditional acequia system (which is not just a physical system but also brings with it a very long-standing tradition of water rights management and community maintenance), a legacy of the era when this region was a Spanish colony. We can just see one of the acequia branches at the bottom of this frame.

G07522-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Vegetable garden and acequia

Here we see Carla and a group of other visitors about to enter O'Keefe's bedroom.

G07513-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: Into the bedroom

Perhaps the pièce de résistance of the visit was these two doors, leading onto the patio (which, fortunately, since it was not "inside", was a legitimate venue for photography).

G07527-01-S800.jpg


Douglas A. Kerr: The two famous patio doors

Sadly, as we thought we had been discouraged from bringing "serious" cameras on the tour at all (actually a bum steer), I was shooting with Carla's trusty Canon PowerShot G16, which did not give me the field of view I would liked to have here. These doors (especially the leftmost one, which is fact was why O'Keefe said she bought the house) were the subjects of numerous of her iconic paintings.

We left directly from this visit to drive home to Alamogordo, as the next day we were scheduled to have new Internet service installed (a story all by itself, but it went well and the result is a great success).

Overall, it was a wonderful trip, seeing many of the wonders of our amazing state, in the company of an amazing woman.

As the Cherokee say, "That's all I have to say now."

Best regards,

Doug
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
"I'll start by talking about our locomotive, beginning with this:"

G07289-01-S800.jpg


Photographer unknown (a kind volunteer): Doug and Carla in front of C&TS 489


Doug and Carla,

We have gotten to know you both as a loving and devoted couple. You are a tenacious fellow. I am thrilled to see your record of this wonderful, albeit short journey. It shows a love for each other and a great appreciation for both nature and the rich but harsh lanscape there, but also the importance of the railway in "civilization" colonizing the continent.

We all salute the two of you!

Bravo. We wish you both many more happy journeys together.

Asher
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
I knew we had more in common than just our good looks, Doug.
Trains and good looking women as well. In addition, you are celebrating the same number of years of bliss with Carla as I am with Christine, although, rumor has it that Chrsitine stalked me for a few years previous but I just didn't notice. Silly me.

Love the tour and the pictures. A real sense of enjoyment from you both.
One question. Did you dress like that to look like an engineer or is that your normal rig? Just asking.

Xxxx and a hug to Carla.

Tom
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Tom,

I knew we had more in common than just our good looks, Doug.
Trains and good looking women as well.

Two worthwhile areas of interest.

In addition, you are celebrating the same number of years of bliss with Carla as I am with Christine, although, rumor has it that Chrsitine stalked me for a few years previous but I just didn't notice. Silly me.

Indeed.

Carla didn't stalk me!

Love the tour and the pictures. A real sense of enjoyment from you both.

Thank you so much.

One question. Did you dress like that to look like an engineer or is that your normal rig?

That is my perfectly usual rig for outside of World Headquarters (if I am not going out I stay all day in my pajamas), dressing like an engineer (but not like a locomotive driver).

Xxxx and a hug to Carla.

Same to ya, and the same to Christine.

Best regards,

Doug


Tom[/QUOTE]
 
Top