The "Southern" heads west. Just before sunrise, on a cool, fall morning, Rio Grande Southern Locomotive #20 takes a short freight westbound, on a Lerro Photography Charter in September of 2021. The train is pictured here, just west of Ferguson's trestle at Milepost 286.0 on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. That's RGS shorty caboose #0400 on the end of the train, painted in the RGS "Sunrise" herald.
Although most of the freight cars in this train are painted either for the Denver & Rio Grande or it's successor, the Denver & Rio Grande Western, this is historically accurate for the RGS, as the D&RG(W) was the parent railroad and pretty much pulled the strings on "The Southern." Much of their equipment was hand-me-down or loaned to the RGS and whether or not it was painted depended on whether or not it needed it. Many cars and locomotives that operated on the 162-mile line from Durango to Ridgway never received the RGS colors, and sometimes when they were painted, the work was done so hastily that the outlines of previous paint schemes were still visible under the topcoat.
