The Durango and Silverton

Had a very early start on the 27th; alarm went off at 6:20am! Was on the road by 6:45 and into Durango just after 7 to collect my Fall Photographers Special tickets. Was supposed to collect them by 7, but had to stop off on the way for some snacks, and then when arriving at the station found there was a $7 parking fee! So I wasn't impressed when I arrived at the ticket counter and had to wait ages for the guy in front of me to leisurely book his tickets. But got tickets ok and boarded the train and we were soon on our way. Soon became apparent that there was no open carriage on this train which made no sense at all, after all on a photographers special chances are one or two people might want to take photos without having to awkwardly lean out a window! And what really topped it off was when the conductor mentioned that there were still a few tickets available to the night photo special, yet when I'd booked a week earlier the lady on the phone had said they were all full! So I could've gone after all, and had wanted to. So that soured my mood, so far the train wasn't nearly as much fun as the Cumbres and Toltec had been.

We made our way through Durango which seemed to stretch on for ages, and then through assorted small hills for a while, then finally we started entering mountains.

Our schedule was to hot foot it to Silverton, wait for the regular passenger train to arrive and then make our way back stopping where possible for photos. Which is pretty much what we did.

Silverton is a very small town, only one paved road there. No doubt it solely exists today because of the stream train. After all where else in America could you charge $4 for a hot dog?! An average one at that!

 

First call of duty in Silverton was to phone the D&S ticketing office and try and secure a couple of night photo shoot tickets. Easier said than done! There is no D&S station here to call HQ from, and the info centre is just an unmanned box, so had to use a pay phone. According to the confusing instructions on it, it'd be 50c. I had one quarter and a lot of other coins that made no sense. So I just fed them all in tried to make a call, but I'd get half way through feeding in coins and it'd cut me off saying that I was a dumb slow foreigner and here in the States we take less than a minute to dial our numbers! Or something along those lines. So I tried feeding the coins in as fast as I could and dialling as fast as I could but I was still too slow! I was beginning to see why airport payphones are often the victims of gruesome murders! Heck, I was beginning to grip the receiver more like a club. Eventually I managed to place my call, but only after converting all my shrapnel into quarters so I could feed it faster. And I managed to secure my tickets, and then the phone didn't give me my change, so frankly it's lucky I didn't have more time alone with it!

After that it was time for an overpriced cheese dog (versus a full turkey dinner and desert on the C&T) and soon it was time to board the train again.

First photo stop was of the next passenger train passing us, so dets (as in detonators, i.e. explosives) were placed on the train further down to warn the approaching train and we all went into position. The dets went off with an almighty boom…boom that echoed through the entire valley and soon the train roared past.

Then our train came back and so we got another chance at shooting it.

Nearby aspens / photographers all lined up (and this is just a tiny subset of them)

Down the line for another, this time by a river. Tripod got a bit wet.

And some more shots…

 

The final spot was at horseshoe curve which is a pretty incredible location.

Got back to the station and it was time for the night photo shoot; no rest for the wicked here! They'd set up special remote flashes and gave us a countdown for our shots; was a bit weird getting told when to take a photo. But the results were pretty cool.

They had several locos in the sheds already and another two out in the yard ready to be put to bed, so was quite a scene. After moving around a bit they positioned one of the locos over the pit to "drop the fire" which means to open up the bottom of the firebox and drop the coals out. Funny thing is the loco still performs just fine afterwards and had more than enough omph to keep everything running and propel itself back into the roundhouse for the night.

After that had a nice quick meal and then it was off back to KOA to sleep the night. Slept very well; didn't get home till nearly 11 and had been railfanning for a full 14 hours!! So although the day started a bit rough it finished well, although the C&T still has a special place in my heart; it's just a bit less commercial and a bit more, well, narrow gauge.