Trips – 2026 | Nathan D. Holmes

I’ve been sitting on quite a bit of RGS 20 material for some time – both shots from its restoration, its initial runs at the Colorado Railroad Museum back in 2020, it’s first excursions onto the mainline in 70 years back in 2021, and then as of just a few weeks ago, photos from a couple winter photo trips on the Durango & Silverton. I decided it was time to get it all rounded up and posted, along with my usual attempt to educate in addition to just posting pretty pictures.

So here you go, it’s a double whammy – two trip reports for the price of one. The first one covers RGS 20 from its initial creation through its return to mainline rails in 2021, and then the second one covers the D&S trips from a few weeks back.

Report #1 – The Return of RGS 20
Report #2 – RGS 20 in the Winter of 2026

There’s not much to say on this one. It was way too nice today (Feb 27, 2026, and 75 on Colorado’s eastern plains) to sit at my desk and do all the things I should have been doing as a responsible adult today. So instead I fired up the car and went to see if I could find the Colorado Pacific moving around. If not, it gave me a lot of miles to just enjoy my audio book and the open road. Wound up finding Colorado Pacific 620 with 19 grain loads behind, working west at Arlington, so I wound up photographing it all the way back to NA Junction.

The new trip report can be found here: Colorado Pacific – Arlington to NA Junction.

There’s more new stuff coming soon as well. I know I didn’t get anything published in 2025, but a lot of that was trying to figure out this retirement thing. I’m pretty close on a bunch of RGS 20 stuff, as well as the White Pass & Yukon from last fall. Should be sometime in the coming month..

Nathan D. Holmes

Personal Projects, Photography, and Pointless Pontifications

Category Archives: Trips – 2026

New Double Trip Report – RGS 20

New Trip – Colorado Pacific from Today