Night Photo Session featuring DRGW 315

Way back (or at least it seems that way) in August of 2019, there was a night photo session featuring DRGW 315 in Chama, NM.   The 315 pulled a photo freight charter from Antonito, CO from Chama, NM earlier in the day.

DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.
DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.

The 315 was restored by the Durango Railway Historical Society (www.drhs315.org).  DRHS is raising funds to build a structure to protect their historic rolling stock.  Half of the profits from the D&RGW 315 Night Session, Chama, 2019 Gallery will be donated to the DRHS to help them attain their goal.  If you don’t need or want a print, but still interested in helping preserve history?  Contact the DRHS to make a donation through their website or Facebook page.

DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.
DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.

The following history is adapted from the Rio Grande 315 page on Wikipedia:

Denver and Rio Grande Western 315 is a Class C-18 2-8-0 Consolidation type, narrow gauge steam railway locomotive.  315 was built as Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad No. 3 by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1895.  After the demise of the F&CC in 1915, the Denver and Rio Grande purchased it and four of its sisters in 1917 to help with World War I traffic. 

It became DRG 425, then DRGW 315 when the D&RG became the Denver and Rio Grande Western in the reorganization of 1924.  D&RGW service began at Alamosa, Colorado. The 315 spent most of the next decade on the Gunnison Division in Salida, Colorado on the line to Montrose and on the branch to Ouray.

DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.
DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.

As larger locomotives, notably the K-27, K-36 and K-37 Mikados came on line, smaller engines like 315 were used as switchers or scrapped. The 315 appeared in the movie Colorado Territory in 1948.  Taken out of service in 1949, it returned to the silver screen in Around the World in 80 Days in 1956, albeit pushed by a diesel locomotive disguised as a baggage car for the movie.

The 315 was leased to the City of Durango from 1950 and donated to the Chamber of Commerce in 1968.  It was transferred to the City in December, 2000.  Restoration work by the Durango Railroad Historical Society began in 2001.  315 moved under its own power for the first time in 57 years in August, 2007.  The City of Durango transferred ownership of the locomotive to the Durango Railroad Historical Society in 2014.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Locomotive No. 315 in 2008.

DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.
DRGW 315 Night Photo Session, C&TSRR Yard, Chama NM. August 2019.