Double Heading Steam
When one locomotive couldn't handle the job, two joined forces to increase speed or conquer steep grades with heavy loads. Witness spectacular plumes of smoke as double-headed engines roar at maximum effort!
Last Train from Alamosa
Last Train from Alamosa
See the last hurrah of the Denver & Rio Grande as a working narrow gauge in South-West Colorado - the way it really used to be!
The Denver & Rio Grande often had to double–head the 400 class engines to climb the 4% grade to Cumbres Pass. This DVD has ten sequences of these narrow gauge duos, include a beautiful finale double-heading across the valley in the snow at sunset.
Catch passenger operations on the 170 miles between Alamosa and Durango with engines roaring across the flats of the San Luis Valley, battling the 4% over Cumbres Pass, and winding through canyons all the way to Durango. Some of the last passenger specials to shine these rails rumble through Canyon Amargo and take water at Arboles, now lost beneath the waters of Navajo Lake.
View the long-lost Farmington Branch, and a mountain rescue on the Silverton. Finally follow the last train all the way from Alamosa to Durango as it races across the valley then climbs to the summit of Cumbres Pass at dusk in the snow. We hear its whistle echo one last time off the canyon walls before the rails fall silent forever. Cinematography by Herb Craig and Mac Owen
60 minutes
“This film is outstanding, to say the least, the quality is quite exceptional and the content is unbelievable. As a narrow gauger for 40 years, I learned things from this film I never knew. I saw things I had never seen in books.”