Cumbres & Toltec Operations Delayed

[Bob Dylan]

According toa Google News story, the Cumbres and Toltec Tourist RR that links New Mexici and Colorado is postponing its Season Startup to July 1st due to the Extreme Wild Fire Danger that exists due to the Draught and Record Heat Wave occurring in the Southwest.

Also the small Tourist Town of Chama,NM, where many tourists stay while riding the Route, is out of Water due to broken Pipes, and the State of New Mexico has supplied Water Trucks to the Area,but will be unable to continue to do so after this week.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Durango has had to cancel a few trips as well due to extreme fire danger in the National Forest. Also the Grand Canyon Railway has canceled a few steam excursions but continued to operate with diesels.

 

[Trollopian]

According toa Google News story, the Cumbres and Toltec Tourist RR that links New Mexici and Colorado is postponing its Season Startup to July 1st due to the Extreme Wild Fire Danger that exists due to the Draught and Record Heat Wave occurring in the Southwest.

Also the small Tourist Town of Chama,NM, where many tourists stay while riding the Route, is out of Water due to broken Pipes, and the State of New Mexico has supplied Water Trucks to the Area,but will be unable to continue to do so after this week.

That is a shame. I rode the Cumbres and Toltec when visiting friends in Taos, N.M., who had to be coaxed into going on it with me and then couldn't stop raving about it afterwards. One of my life's best memories. Black Kleenex notwithstanding. (See America's most beautiful train journeys.) I'm no climatologist, but that "high desert" area of northern N.M. and southern CO typically has a monsoon season from about now to September, a daily refreshing rainfall in the afternoon with trademark brilliant skies and low humidity before and after. That'd ordinarily mitigate wildfire risk. But now there's concern that the monsoons could be unusually heavy this year, posing flood and landslide risk. Maybe we've mucked around with Mother Nature too far.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/21/newmexico-monsoon-rainfall-flooding/ (paywall, but usually nonsubscribers can read a certain number of free articles per month)