Outlaws Run 2014 - 10th Annual!

[bh4rnnr]

Shawn and Dan S, some fun pics of the drive to Taos.

Here's some more of mine.



Since we had a planned meet up with Sean and Dan s at Angle Fire/Black Lake, the original route over Quintana pass was changed. We were a bit far north to access the pass. We entered Carson National Forest via Valle Escondido. Awesome country.

 

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The drive along FSR437 seemed to get better at every turn.

Thought I spotted a grizzly, nope. Just Dan S.

Cardinal.

 

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Like I said, the drive was alright...

My original plan for camp was to camp along the Rio grande down in the Gorge at Dunn Bridge. Spotted this site during a family visit to Taos last year. Upon arrival, found a no camping sign. Dang. Back up camp didn't appeal to the group so we went on. Good views of the Gorge and Sangre De Cristo's though.

 

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Overlooking the Rio Grand Gorge. If you look close, you can see the road that puts you on the river. That's where I originally planned to stay.

A few night time shots. Sangre De Cristo's in the distance. Ended up misplacing my wireless remote for the camera. So it was only 30 sec exposures for me.

 

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Sunrise Tuesday morning.

 

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Spotted this little guy while waiting for the group to finish getting ready.

Caption Quest?

Exploring some of the country around the Gorge.

 

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D. Linn

Matt Farr.

Cardinal.

 

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While a few of us explored the country around the Gorge, Dan S and Daniel Markofsky went to town to get the brake caliper bolts fixed on Daniels 80. We planned to meet up with them in Chama that evening. The Gorge group ended up getting split up while Daniel Linn and Sean Boland tried to find a route to HWY 64. A few of us ended up backtracking to get to 64. We crossed over the Gorge Bridge where Shawn's 60 made some funny noises and died. Ended up being a bad vacuum pump. Arrangements were made with the Shop that Daniel just visited to have it fixed the next day. So part of the group stayed in Taos that night while a few of us headed on to Chama and camp.


We took the scenic route to Chama.

Also made a stop at the train yard in Chama for some night time shots of the trains.

 

[bh4rnnr]

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Dan S lead us to a great camp nestled against the Aspens. The Lunar eclipse was the next morning and I probably would have seen it had I looked in the right direction.

The group back together in Antonito, minus Shawn's 60. We took the bus to Chama.

Our transportation for the day. Train #487.

 

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I could spend a better part of the day photographing the train.

The gang.

 

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Mr. Cardinal.

I think the theme for this trip was "Golden Aspens".

Making our way out of Chama.

 

[DanS]

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We took the scenic route to Chama.

That's an understatement. The drive between Tres Piedras and Tierra Amarilla is absolutely stunning. Without a doubt one of the most scenic US highways I have ever seen.

And then, as Perry noted, we had to stop at the railroad yard in Chama for some night pictures. Interesting note, is that it's really hard to see 484 inside the engine house (in the stall to the right, the stall on the left had Rotary Snowplow OY in it, which I understand the railroad has been working on to run again one of these winters), which means that when we pulled into the yard, there were 4 hot steam locomotives. 488 (the one outside, by itself) is cooling off for some sort of maintenance, but it was still putting out a bit of steam, as they cool them down slowly.

 

[bh4rnnr]

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Outside of Chama.

Typical views of the day.

 

[bh4rnnr]

That's an understatement. The drive between Tres Piedras and Tierra Amarilla is absolutely stunning. Without a doubt one of the most scenic US highways I have ever seen.

And then, as Petty noted, we had to stop at the railroad yard in Chama for some night pictures. Interesting note, is that it's really hard to see 484 inside the engine house (in the stall to the right, the stall on the left had Rotary Snowplow OY in it, which I understand the railroad has been working on to run again one of these winters), which means that when we pulled into the yard, there were 4 hot steam locomotives. 488 (the one outside, by itself) is cooling off for some sort of maintenance, but it was still putting out a bit of steam, as they cool them down slowly.

 

[DanS]

What can I say? I really like trains. And their steam with the backlighting just makes for cool pictures.

Here was our campsite that night...

Perry went to explore in the morning (and to locate a bigger campsite for the next night)

And in Antonito, while we were waiting to get on the bus, the 5th operating locomotive that the C&TS has, 463 was being readied to pull the train from Antonito.

Interesting note, that 463 is a K-27 (K refers to the wheel arrangement, and 27 refers to 27,000 pounds of tractive effort). It was originally built (and subsequently rebuilt a couple of times by the D&RGW) in 1902.

The other 4 locomotives (484, 487, 488 and 489) on the C&TS are K-36s (36,000 pounds of tractive effort). They were built in 1925. There were 10 K-36s built, and of those, one (485) was scrapped by the D&RGW after it had an accident in a turntable pit. The others are all still in existence, and only one of them is not operational (483). 480, 481, 482, and 486 are all in operation at the Durango and Silverton. When it comes to timeless engineering designs, that simply work well, and do their job for years and years and years (89 years now for the K-36s) I see the K-36s as very similar to the 40 series cruisers. Yep, there are newer, faster, more comfortable things out there, but a 1965 FJ-40 can still go to an awful lot of places reliably--the way it was originally designed to.

 

[DanS]

I could also spend days photographing the train. Seriously, if they run the rotary again (which would be in the spring, and not likely until spring 2016) I will do everything I can to get down there just to photograph that.

Blowing down the boiler (to blow out dirt and muck) around tanglefoot curve.

The cattle drive is going on during this time of year, so these weren't the only cowboys (actual cowboys, not likely to have Truck Nutz dangling from their vehicle) we saw driving the cattle down from the high pastures.

Going around Los Pinos

Crossing Cascade Trestle.

Just arriving in Osier, CO for lunch. You can see the dining hall building, and of course the ever present golden aspens. I really like the golden aspens, coupled with a black locomotive, black smoke fading to grey, and a little maroon of the coach car. The only color that's really missing here is an 854 Sky Blue cruiser.

 

[DanS]

A couple more of the train while we stopped for lunch. The other train (pulled by 463) came from Antonito, but we were inside eating instead of getting photos of it.

Here 487's safety valves are popping off even though the fireman had been off to his lunch for probably 30 minutes at this point. Just the heat from the coal in the firebox creating more steam pressure than the boiler can take, so the safety valves pop off sometimes to reduce the pressure. Pretty incredible that such an old machine is still efficient enough to do that, in my book.

You can see some of the historic structures at Osier, along with the telegraph pole (the Friends of the C&TS have restored some of the telegraph lines)

Phantom Curve. East of Osier is a lot of very cool rock formations, two tunnels, and of course, a very deep gorge.

(that's it for my Train day pictures. I'll hold off again until Perry gets the next day posted)

 

[dan1554]

One more train photo. Haven't had much time to sort through the pics, but theres some good ones!

 

[OilHammer]

"Just the heat from the coal in the firebox creating more steam pressure than the boiler can take, so the safety valves pop off sometimes to reduce the pressure. Pretty incredible that such an old machine is still efficient enough to do that, in my book."

I'm pretty impressed with those as well. I have a 1930 boiler in my house that's still going strong. It was originally a coal fired unit, but was converted to gas at some point. I actually rearranged the floor plan in my house because of the latent heat energy coming out of that thing. You can turn the thermostat off, and the basement & room above will stay comfortable for hours from all the cast iron in it. I can imagine that back in the day, all you needed to do was hit the boil point, choke the air inlets back, and then toss in one scoop of coal for the entire night. I can probably figure that out just by looking at all the 1931 coal deliveries penciled into the old coal room door.

 

[bh4rnnr]

Nice shot Daniel Linn!

Here's some more of mine

Another place I could live.