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A defunct water tower and an old stockade seem to echo with the sounds of the old steam engines that passed by here.
But some of those echoes still ring true: the hardy old engines and rebuilt cars of the historic Cumbres and Toltec Railroad still chug up steep Windy Point.
Engine 484 blows its ear-piercing steam whistle each time it approaches a highway crossing. Still burning local coal, the locomotive is maintained with the same traditional methods that were used when it was built nearly 100 years ago.
Now carrying loads of tourists instead the loads of coal and mining ores that were its original cargo, the railroad wends its way through the autumn landscape, as thrilling and spectacular a train ride as one can find.
At the Chama end of the run, the engine is uncoupled, serviced, and turned around for the next day's trip. Here, the engineer waits for one last signal.
One of the most spectacular views comes when the train steams across 100-foot-tall Lobato Trestle. The tracks, originally part of the narrow-guage line that General William Jackson Palmer built from Denver to Mexico City, require continuous maintenance in the weather of not just one but two mountain passes. Trains leave both Chama and Antonito each morning.
While the view from the train is undoubtedly worth the price of admission, as a photographer I preferred the view of the train passing through the red and golden aspen lining the dark green slopes of pine and fir.