Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, Chama, New Mexico
, 1958
h = 50 in
archival pigment print
A three–foot–gauge Mikado 2–8–2 locomotive no. 483 simmers overnight just outside the engine house in Chama, New Mexico. The narrow–gauge three–foot line over 10,015–foot Cumbres Pass was built in 1880 as the San Juan Extension of the D&RGW and went 199.8 miles from Alamosa to Durango, crossing the Colorado–New Mexico boundary ten times in the process. In 1970 a sixty–four–mile section between Chama, New Mexico, and Antonito, Colorado, was jointly purchased by both states and leased to a tourist operator called the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad.