Chama Yard, New Mexico — North Camera
Coal, water and oil: where the Chama engines are made ready
Chama Yard, New Mexico — North Camera
Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad — Chama yard, ex-Denver & Rio Grande Western San Juan Extension (3 ft narrow gauge) · Chama, New Mexico, United States
This operator has not granted Spotatrain permission to embed the feed, so we link to it instead.
Watch at Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic RailroadStreamed by Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad
Stream hosted by Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. Spotatrain links to the original feed and does not rebroadcast.
The North Camera of the Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad looks up the Chama yard in New Mexico at the servicing end — bunk house, coaling area, the Gramps oil rack, the water tank, the engine house lead, and the main line the operator labels "to Denver", which is the direction that climbs to the 10,015 ft Cumbres Pass. Free live video, no account required.
About this cam
This is the working end of the Chama yard. The Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad list what the North Camera covers, left to right: "Bunk House - Coaling Area - Gramps Oil Rack - Mainline to Denver - Water Tank - Engine House Lead". Coal, water and oil in one frame, which is precisely the sequence a narrow-gauge Mikado goes through before it can leave for Antonito. The "Mainline to Denver" in that caption is the original Denver & Rio Grande route direction, not a destination the railroad serves today. The line here was "originally constructed in 1880 as part of the Rio Grande's narrow gauge San Juan Extension" at "a gauge of 3 feet between the rails", and what remains in service is the "64-miles between Chama, NM, and Antonito, CO" over the "10,015 foot high Cumbres Pass" — so the eastward main line in view is the start of the climb. The yard itself has been publicly owned since 1970, when Colorado and New Mexico paid "$547,120" for "Nine steam locomotives, over 130 freight and work cars, and the Chama yard and maintenance facility". The railroad received "National Historic Landmark Designation in 2012", and this camera is aimed at the reason why: the coaling, watering and servicing infrastructure survived intact rather than being swept away. The camera is one of three the Friends installed and pay for — "made possible by the support of FRIENDS of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad" — carried in a Brownrice Internet HTML5 video player on the Friends' webcam page. No terms of use are published, so Spotatrain links rather than embeds.
What to watch for
The servicing choreography, which happens on camera and nowhere else on the internet: an engine backing down the engine house lead, spotting under the coaling area, then pulling ahead to the water tank. The Gramps oil rack in the middle of the frame is what makes 489 different from the rest of the fleet — the railroad converted it to oil firing ahead of the 2021 season, while 484, 487, 488 and 463 remain coal burners. The bunk house on the left is crew accommodation, not scenery. Because the eastward main line in view is the Cumbres Pass climb, a departing Antonito train will pass left to right and keep going; a light engine returning to the shop will not. Everything here is 3 ft gauge, so the water tank spouts, the coal loader and the rail all sit noticeably lower and closer together than a standard-gauge equivalent.
Best viewing times
The operator's own advice for the Chama cameras: "Look for deer at dusk and dawn each day. Tune in each morning for a spectacular Chama sunrise via the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad webcams." For railway movement, work the depot's published season hours — "The Chama depot is open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. during the regular season" — with the morning end being when locomotives are prepared for the day's departure.
Explore around Chama
2 places on Spotatrain within 25 km of Chama — 1 journey and 1 live cam.