Rio Grande Scenic Railroad

The Rio Grande Scenic is a relatively new operation and only started running with a steam locomotive this year. When it comes to scenery they compare to Durango and Silverton or Cumbres and Toltec but the scenery starts slowly. Alamosa is located in the middle of the San Luis Valley and as the train leaves east out of town the land is flat and the mountains seem quite distant. After 23 miles of perfectly straight track, the train passes through the small town of Fort Garland and turn northeast along the Sangre de Cristo Creek toward La Veta Pass. Soon the terrain can only be described as mountainous as the railroad leaves the highway and climbs higher and higher toward the 9200 ft. crest of the pass. The area through here shows no signs of habitation for miles and miles ... no cabins and no roads. It is not far from the summit, called Fir on the railroad, to the small town of La Vita, but the grade is a steep 3 percent so the train stops and the train crew sets the retainers that will insure that brakes are applied continuously as we descend. The trip down is as scenic as the one up, though with more signs of habitation, and the smell of hot brakes is evident. Soon we deboard for a two hour stop in La Vita. The town is geared up for tourists, both from the train and folks visiting just for the "quaintness," so a meal is easy to find and my salmon sandwich was quite tasty.

As much as I enjoyed the trip, I wish I could say nice things about the cars we rode in. Used passenger equipment is hard to find and expensive as more and more excursion trains get started. There were three passenger cars on the train and one ex RPO, used for concessions. There were no assigned seats except for the back half of the last car which was designated the Parlour Car. One car had only two back to back rows of church pews down the middle. These seats were quite popular but getting to the concession car meant walking in front of everyone on one side or the other. The other two seating cars were ex commuter cars from the Long Island Railroad. One even had 3-2 seating and almost no one sat in that car. The other had 2-2 seating but half the seats faced one way and half faced the other and they could not be rotated or flipped. Since the engine was turned in La Vita but not the train, you were riding backwards for half of the trip is you stayed in the same seat. The train was not crowded however and everyone in my car was able to find a new forward facing seat for the return trip. The seats BTW had been often used and sagged badly with almost no cushioning left. Don't know if that was the cause but I had a sore back that night. The interior of the cars themselves was clean and modern and simply putting in new, turnaround seats would make a great difference.

Over all, well worth the trip.