STEAMING PAST AUTUMN FOLIAGE ON TWO VINTAGE EXCURSION TRAINS

CHAMA, N.M. —  On a crisp October morning, surrounded by gilded aspen, red oak brush and scented green pines, I pointed my 35mm camera at four hissing, belching steam locomotives preparing for the morning run over a 10,000-foot mountain pass. No fences or railway cops stopped me as I watched engine No. 488 take on 5,000 gallons of water from an 1897 wooden water tower held together, like a giant barrel, with tightly cinched metal bands. My long-delayed trip to ride America’s highest and longest narrow-gauge steam railroad was off to a great start.

After half a lifetime bypassing this wonderfully intact railroad yard in remote northern New Mexico, my wife, Kathleen, and I had finally arrived at what’s rightfully called “railroading’s last good place.” We had managed, on a previous trip, to ride the better-known Silverton train out of Durango. But as the Air Force shuttled us back and forth between the Midwest and California, military urgency always seemed to keep the family car off the back roads to Chama. Now, with my military career over, and our youngest off to college, there was time and money to spend in pursuit of a lifelong interest in steam trains.

The 64-mile-long Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad out of Chama, and the 45-mile Durango & Silverton, are the only segments left of the narrow-gauge railroad empire that once included about 1,800 miles of track and brought settlers, miners and ranchers to the high country of Colorado, New Mexico and Utah in the 1880s.

We spent the night at the Lightheart Inn across from the C&TS; depot. Instead of lulling me to sleep, the gentle chuffing, occasional bells and lonesome whistle or two, kept me awake anticipating the things I would see after sunrise. Lightheart owner Terry Scobie is used to railroad insomnia and had breakfast ready at the crack of dawn. I wolfed down the quiche, sticky buns and fresh fruit, left Kathleen with a hot cup of coffee and a crossword puzzle and headed for the railroad yard.

Enshrouded in a cloud of steam, l walked beside No. 489 as it chugged past the last operating coal tipple in America. The 72-year-old engine then paused over an ash pit to clean its firebox. The fireman climbed down from the locomotive’s cab, stood next to the rails and probed 489’s red-hot grate with a 5-foot metal poker. I felt the heat as I watched the fiery cascade of molten cinders from the locomotive’s belly to the bottom of the 6-foot open pit.

This morning the C&TS; has four locomotives under steam. Two will pull the 10:30 a.m. train out of the depot; the third is on standby should one of the prime locomotives develop a mechanical problem. And the fourth is on “yard duty,” switching cars together that will make up today’s train.

On an adjacent track, No. 463 sounded a melodic three-toot warning, then backed toward the roundhouse, which serves as a garage for locomotives. Fortunately, steam engines such as old 463--which was donated to the C&TS; by cowboy star Gene Autry and restored to operating condition in 1993--are exempt from the government rule mandating ear-piercing beepers for any heavy vehicle equipped with a reverse gear.

In fact, the remarkably intact railroad yard at Chama is exempt from almost everything modern. Little, including the town of Chama (population 1,200), has changed much since the railroad reached it in 1880 on its way to the rich silver mines near Durango, Colo.

Kathleen and I boarded our coach, Ouray, 10 minutes before departure and took assigned seats 23 and 24. Because the train often is sold out, we had reserved space on the Oct. 3 train to Antonito, Colo., two weeks in advance.

Inside, the steel replica of an 1880s wooden coach is spartan. The upholstered seats are covered in beige vinyl, but the legroom is first class, and large picture windows can be opened to admit the fresh mountain air and the sounds of steam.

Fittingly, our 16-car train leaves Chama five minutes behind schedule. A conductor shouts an “all-aboard” that’s audible all the way from the last car to the locomotives up front. The engineer waves back at the conductor, acknowledging receipt of the signal and then pulls away from the station. Astride 3-foot narrow-gauge rails, we roll past Chama’s block-long business district set on a small bluff overlooking the C&TS;’ western terminus.

The locals have, so far, resisted the over-commercialization too often found where tourists gather. Most overnight accommodations are in log cabins, 10-unit motels and B&Bs.; Restaurants, most specializing in meat and potato dishes, occupy false-front buildings along the town’s only through street.

Back on the track, our train is doing what railroads don’t like to do: climb a mountain. The San Juan Range ahead was too wide to tunnel through and too long to go around when the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad extended its mainline from Antonito to Chama in 1880.

After crossing the fast-flowing Chama River on a long, steel-truss bridge, the train steams through a grove of aspen. Almost on cue, the sun bursts through the clouds. Wet, yellow leaves suddenly turn to gold in the shimmering morning light.

The route up and over the mountains requires two locomotives to pull our train up a 4% grade--a 4-foot gain in elevation for each 100 feet of track--to Cumbres Pass. Just 14 miles after leaving Chama at 7,863 feet above sea level, the tracks crest the mountain pass at 10,015 feet. Getting a workout that no exercise device sold on TV can even come close to providing, firemen on Nos. 488 and 489 each shovel 2 1/2 tons of coal during the hour it takes to reach the summit.

Five miles into the climb, the train grinds to a stop near a still-intact corral at Lobato, giving the firemen a breather. From a vantage point on the open platform between two coaches, l watch as lead engine 488 is uncoupled and chugs alone across a spindly trestle spanning a deep chasm cut by Wolf Creek. The rickety old bridge can’t simultaneously support the weight of two-quarter-million-pound locomotives. Safely across, 488 stops on the other side and waits for 489 and the rest of our train.

Restarting the long train on a spiraling mountain grade produces a one-minute sound bite of all the good noises from the steam era. Signaling with long and short whistle blasts, engineers synchronize operations of the two locomotives. Brake shoes release to the hissing tune of venting air pressure. Drivers start, slip and spin until sand provides adhesion between steel wheels and iron rails. Steam cylinders huff, puff and finally chuff. With a succession of groans and jerks as knuckle couplers on each of the 16 cars are snapped taught, the assault on the mountain is again underway.

A quick look at the route map depicts the challenge faced by D&RGW; civil engineers who surveyed the line about 128 years ago. Chama and Antonito are only 35 air miles apart, yet it takes 64 miles of twisting narrow-gauge track, crisscrossing the straight-line border between New Mexico and Colorado 11 times, to form a rail link over the San Juan Range. The two states bought the railroad in 1970 after the Interstate Commerce Commission approved the Rio Grande’s petition to cease operations due to mounting losses. Purchase price: $547,120, or about what it costs to build an upscale house in Santa Fe, 110 miles south of Chama.

Always underfinanced, more often in bankruptcy than boom, the D&RGW;’s balance sheet followed the ups and downs of the fickle mining industry it served. Steam engines and wooden boxcars hauled freight in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico until 1968 because the D&RGW; could not afford to do what other railroads did in the 1950s--convert to more efficient diesel power.

What little capital the railroad had went into operations. The squeaky wheel got the grease and everything else was sustained by the preserving qualities of cool mountain air.

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad was formed to operate the line and carried 8,700 passengers in 1971, its first year of operation. According to a C&TS; spokesman, the railroad will haul about 70,000 passengers this year, a record high.

Ten miles out of Chama, the train climbs above 9,000 feet and enters Colorado for the first time. Inside our coach, passengers begin closing windows as the outside temperature falls a full 10 degrees, to the mid-60s, with the rise in altitude. Our speed drops to five miles per hour as the train snakes around a mountain ledge en route to the summit.

The tight curve offers a good view of the train that’s an odd mixture of coaches and boxcars converted to haul passengers. Unlike most tourist operations, the C&TS; paints the outsides of its cars in traditional railroad colors. The coaches are finished in Pullman green, about the same color the Army paints its tanks. Next come five Tuscan-red wooden boxcars modified, by cutting windows and adding seats, to carry passengers. One of the old boxcars serves as a concession car selling hot coffee, soft drinks, snacks, film and C&TS; sweatshirts and coffee mugs. A roofless high-sided gondola brings up the rear. It’s available to all passengers and is packed solid with camera and camcorder buffs. Thick black smoke from the hard-working engines swirls along the train, engulfing the open car at our rear. The old gondola still carries the lettering and dull red paint from its days with the D&RGW.; The current owners added a modern sign, posted in full view of the camera-clicking passengers: “No Smoking.” Like everything else on the train, the sign is blackened with soot from the locomotive’s smoke stack.

Still panting, the long train rounds Windy Point on a narrow ledge, giving passengers a breathtaking view of glaciated Wolf Creek Valley far below the tracks.

With triumphant toots, we reach Cumbres. At 10,015 feet, Cumbres Pass is the lowest route across the southern San Juans. Puffing hard, the train stops next to the Cumbres water tower. No. 489, its tender nearly empty, takes on 4,000 gallons of water while the helper is uncoupled, moves down the track, then turns around on a wye before heading back down the mountain.

We continue behind a single locomotive. The 50-mile trip down the mountain’s gentler eastern slope to Antonito traverses a series of winding switchbacks. In these corkscrew bends, the engine and the last cars on the train often are traveling in opposite directions.

After crossing a 137-foot-high-bridge over trout-filled Cascade Creek, the Chama train stops at Osier, the halfway point, for lunch. Located in a high grassy meadow 30 miles from the nearest paved road, Osier once was a major shipping point for sheep and cattle.

The eastbound train from Antonito had arrived a few minutes earlier. For a reasonable $7 ($5 for children), today’s 500 Chama passengers, and about 250 from Antonito, have a lunchtime choice of Western barbecued beef or a Mexican platter. Meal tickets can be purchased before departure and also are sold on board. Lunch is taken in a modern dining room overlooking the tumbling waters of Los Pin~os Gorge. Picnic table are available for brown-bagging passengers.

On time, the Chama train leaves Osier at 2 p.m. and starts the final and most spectacular part of our journey. During the next 15 miles, the train slips through two tunnels, clings to a narrow rock outcropping 1,000 feet above the floor of Toltec Gorge, and meanders through a variegated forest where falling aspen leaves decorate boughs of Ponderosa pines and Colorado blue spruce such as golden Christmas ornaments. The scenery rivals the Silverton train’s run above the Animas River 20 rail miles north of Durango.

While we’re in the high country, the train rolls past isolated ghost towns named Sublette and Big Horn where lonely railroad employees and their families once wintered over to keep the line open. Sudden blizzards can occur at this altitude as early as September and as late as June. During today’s run, our locomotive carries a large snowplow over its cowcatcher just in case there’s a radical change in the weather.

As we near the end of our journey, the tracks leave the meandering mountain watersheds and drop down to an arid mesa. Antonito is visible on the horizon as the train, in less than a mile, loops in and out of New Mexico and reenters Colorado for the last time. The final state-line crossing is near Lava Tank, the seventh water stop since Chama for thirsty steam engines.

At Antonito, a ranching town with 800 residents, a bus provides return transportation to Chama--included in the train ticket price. What took six hours by train takes just 52 minutes on Route 17. On the ride back to Chama, Kathleen and I discuss our just-completed ride. We’ll never make it to all 130 steam and tourist trains still left in the U.S., but we both agree nothing anywhere, including the Durango & Silverton, could rival the C&TS;’ unique combination of scenery and authentic mountain railroading, the triumph of fire, coal, water and muscle over mountains.

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GUIDEBOOK: Chama Boarding

Getting there: To Albuquerque, N.M., there’s nonstop service on Southwest Airlines, connecting service on America West and United. Round-trip fares begin at $186, including tax. Rent a car at the airport. Take Interstate 25 to Santa Fe, then U.S. 84 to Chama, about a 3 1/2-hour trip.

Train tickets: The C&TS; operates two trains daily, one originating in Chama, the other from the railroad’s eastern terminus at Antonito, Colo. Advance reservations ([505] 756-2151) are a must, especially in leaf season.

Departures are at 10:30 a.m. from Chama, and a half-hour earlier from Antonito. Through trips (one-way along the entire 64-mile line by rail and return by bus) cost $52 for adults and $27 for children 11 and younger. Other options include round trips by train from either Chama or Antonito to Osier, the C&TS; midpoint; tickets are $34 for adults and $17 for children. Families and small tour groups can lease a caboose for $390-$950 that accommodates up to 12 passengers.

Where to stay: We stayed at the Lightheart Inn (631 Terrace Ave., Chama, NM 87520; telephone [505] 756-2908). Owner Terry Scobie converted the Victorian house to a B&B; and offers vegetarian breakfast, breakfast in bed, and massages. Rates are $85 for a double.

Other options include log cabins along the Chama River (Elk Horn Lodge, 2663 Highway 84; Route 1, Box 45, Chama NM 87520; tel. (800) 532-8874). The kitchen-equipped cabins accommodate two to eight, and rent for $72-$104.

The Chama Station Inn (423 Terrace Ave., Chama; [505] 756-2315) has individually decorated motel rooms across the street from the C&TS; terminal; rates $46-$69.

Just north of the C&TS; yard, the Rio Chama Campground (182 North Highway 17; tel. [505] 756-2303) has 90 sites for tent campers and RVs; hookups are $12-$16.

For more information: Call the Chama Chamber of Commerce, tel. (800) 477-0149 . Or New Mexico Department of Tourism, 491 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87503; tel. (800) 545-2040.