Middle Tennessee Rail Productions returns to one of the Denver & Rio Grande Western's last-surviving bastions of narrow gauge railroading. Here, on orientation day for the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad's Engineer/Fireman School of August 2022, I had the opportunity to chase a late train #215 back to Chama from Coxo. Former DRGW K-36 2-8-2 "Mikado" #488 had experienced a hotbox on the L7 driver and had to stop at Cumbres so the passengers could be safely unloaded and bussed back to either Antonito or Chama.
After about a couple hours, train #215 made its way down the grade and stopped at Highway 17 near Coxo. It would do this again and again so the crew could periodically check and grease the hotbox to try and avoid further damage occurring as they limped the train back to Chama at a crawl. Due to this and other circumstances, we didn't get to take #484 out past Chama for our orientation runs, but we would continue with the original itinerary and take the train all the way to Antonito the following day. I hope y'all enjoy! Special thanks to my good pal, Croft, for driving us up and back to get shots!
