Originally posted by dubyam My son is a railfan, and an HO modeler. For his graduation from high school this spring, as his gift, he wanted to go out to Colorado & New Mexico to camp, hike, and sight-see. He planned the entire trip, including a few days in Durango, CO. Well, an unfortunate fire changed our plans, so at the last minute we rerouted from Lake City to Chama, instead of Durango. The Cumbres & Toltec was a real treat, for the history, the scenery, and the railfanning. I did not get as nice a batch of pictures as some of these, but I have many. I'll grab a few later and add to this post.
Bring them on!
The Durango railroad was originally the Rio Grande's tourist railroad and got their historic passenger cars. CATS is less 'neat' in a physical sense, but 'neater' in a historic and railfan sense. Apparently locals laughed when these plans were first announced, because the new railroad owned no passenger cars, so the first President, holder of a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and a former faculty member at Stanford (?), designed the first passenger cars {seen in last three pictures} by converting old box cars; the last time I was there, a few of them were still on the property. The current cars were built later using old flat cars as a base