Compres & Toltec Scenic Railway – Antonito, CO to New Mexico

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Compres & Toltec Scenic Railway – Antonito, CO to New Mexico.
An easy day ride on a steam engine powered vintage train. This line goes along the Colorado and New Mexico state lines weaving in and out. If starts flat on the plains but rises up to 10K feet through high canyons and the Compres Pass area. A long ride where halfway we stopped at a hall where they served up a lunch. This line just restarted in last couple of weeks and ridership appeared to be 60% of capacity. The little town of Antonito CO is near the New Mexico state line, and seems the train is a big part of that towns identity. A great ride front to back.

Everything was well maintained and most train cars are mostly original.
The Antonito Colorado train station.
This train line was a key way to access lands southwest into New Mexico along the Rio Grande trail.
The open air train cars opened up the experience dramatically.
We get up to 10K in altitude. Some train riders from sea level were having problems with the altitude.
It’s narrow gauge so we can make tighter turns and wind through these elevated train tracks.
We pass through a short tunnel and on the other side is a breathtaking view to a rocky canyon that seems to have no bottom.
The engineers shovel by hand coal from the right compartment, into the furnace that heats the water.
This is the halfway stop.
The steam engine is always thirsty. We filled 4 times on the trip with just water.
This fellow was the engineer and the ‘real deal’.
Noisy, bouncy, and lots of metallic moaning. This type of connection between all train cars. This is a narrow gauge rail line (3 feet apart vs 5’8″ for standard rails)

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