Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 23503 – 1213
Here’s the haps:
Last April, on the A – Z challenge I did a post about wanting to ride the Durango to Silverton steam train. In 2022 the train company and the forest service decided to suspend the ride due to the dry conditions. People who don’t live near a forest may not understand how big of a deal fire safety is. The stuff Smokey the Bear says on his YouTube channel about the dangers of wildfires is all true. One of my, “Look! A squirrel!” moments happened when I looked up Smokey’s channel and saw this:
Anyway, not only are there possible sparks generated from the wheels on the rails, but when the trains burn coal there are cinders and ash as well that fly up and out. One of the things they are doing to prevent this is they have converted the coal burners to burn recycled used automobile oil instead. I don’t think this affected our ride in any way. The engine (engines, actually. It takes two engines to pull the train up the 2:5 grade through the canyon) is still run by steam power and the countryside is still beautiful? Spectacular? Amazing? Unbelievable? All of the above and more? We’ve lived in Colorado for 36 years and are still in awe of its beauty.
Despite all the problems I have been having with images and inodes lately and the fact that the video below (which I used last year) shows a really good view of the train and the scenery I decided to include a few pictures of our own that we took.
Since I’m still having trouble with posting images and getting my inodes under control, I’m going to test something else that was suggested to me and that was hosting my pictures offsite. I will just see what happens with this. For better or worse I’m using imgur.com for this experiment. I’m not recommending for you to visit there or not, but if you do, I cannot promise you will not be offended.
Getting ready to board
First Class
All hardwood furnishings
Beautiful hardwood
In the song where he says, “it’s 45 miles up the Animas Canyon so they set her on a narrow gauge” which refers to the width of the track between rails. Standard is (from memory) 48 inches. This train is on a 36-inch track. The rock of the canyon wall was, at one point, so close on either side that you could reach your hand out the window and touch it. I didn’t do that because the way things happen for me is that if I had done that my hand would have gotten stuck and my arm broken or worse.
This is not the water tank they use anymore but it is one that was used in times past.
One of the Engines. Waiting in Silverton.
400 feet straight down.
By the time we got back, we were pretty wiped out. I think the thing we would do differently would be to take the train up to Silverton and ride the tour bus back. The trip is 3 1/2 hours up, shop and eat in Silverton for 2 hours then come back down the same way for 3 1/2 hours. That’s a 9-hour day and it got a little long toward the end. If you take the bus back you see different scenery from different angles.
Of course I couldn’t resist sharing this sign we saw in downtown Durango:
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