In October 2024, Trains Magazine sponsored a two-day photo charter on Friday and Saturday to accompany Lerro Photography’s C&TS and Santa Fe 2926 photo charters the following week. Lerro Photography was asked to help with the Trains Magazine Friday night photo session while the train stayed overnight in Silverton. For the photo charter, the D&S #473 was renumbered to Rio Grande #477. During the day on Friday, thunder, rain, and eventual snow showers followed us as we traveled north, performing runbys along the way.
When we arrived in Silverton, it was announced that there was a broken spring on the steam locomotive and that the crew would need some time to replace it. Because of the unplanned repair, the night session would need to feature the crew fixing the engine. As the blue hour approached, heavy snow squalls moved in, and a small group of us took some fantastic shots of the crew working as large snowflakes fell. Once the crew was done working on the engine, we shot a few photos of the locomotive backlit with the heavy snow falling.
Saturday morning featured a few runbys near Silverton with snow on the ground, a rare occurrence since heavy snow in October doesn’t usually happen, and photo trains do not go to Silverton in the winter. Once we were south of the twin bridges, the snow was gone.
Saturday night featured a Lerro Photography-sponsored night photo session at the turntable and roundhouse. The main draw of the night was three K-28s in numerical order alongside each other. During the night, we moved K-28 #477 into several positions. K-36 #480 also posed for a short time with the K-28s. Even though it rained for most of the night session, we got some fantastic photos.
