This takes me back to days when people took the time to appreciate and take pride in what they were doing. Most weren't rushing through a day just to get it over. You can tell that Adam and John have that mindset.

I just love seeing the big machinery Made In the USA. Whatever happened to those days when things were actually made in North America. Awesome to see it even If it's been a couple of hundred years. It's good to know they're still around, and being used.

Why are the machinists on the railroad the best??? They get the most TRAINing 😉👍

Amazing to see the machinery that helped to build this country. 👍🏼

In 1975 , I was 14 , and my family of five piled into my Dad's brand new Plymouth Fury, and we drove cross country from Cape Cod, to California, and back. One of our stops was Durango, CO where we took the coal fired train along the river up to Silverton, CO. I can still remember the sulfur smell of the coal burning, and the smell of the discharged steam that moved our train up the mountains. I was into hot rods, but was still very interested in how the engine worked using coal and steam. The engineer was kind enough to explain the process when I asked him when we got to Silverton. Who knew back then I was going to be a machinist for next 40 plus years. Excellent video, and tour of the machine shop. Thank you for sharing.

On my 70th birthady, bacl in 03. I had a tour of the shop as well. I can see they have picked up a few more nachines. I especially liked the old bullard, as I worked for them back in the 60's installing "Tape controls" on them. Always loved the railroads,My grand father worked on them for 42 years. Guess it's in my blood. Thanks for the memories. Gramps

Abby has a good eye for composition and light, the photos at the end are great.

I love these railroad machine shops. We have a narrow gauge museum in Nevada City Ca., I asked one of the guys in the machine shop how do I volunteer when I retire? He said, if you can run a mill or a lathe just stop on by, we’ll put you to work. Dream come true, railroad equipment and machine tools. Keep these videos coming Abom!!

Lived in Durango for about a year and rode the narrow gauge once. Great tour. Amazing to see those massive machines and the fact that they're still cranking out parts.

Thank you John & Adam. Much appreciated.

Great to see the shop, at Durango again. I worked for the D&RGW and did some work there. I was Water Service, out of Pueblo and ran up there to do boiler work at the depot and installed a new water tank, at Hermosa. I always enjoyed working there. The guys in the machine shop were a fun bunch. Friday, after work the foreman would always bring in a case of beer, to end the week. I see they painted the old brick wall so you can't see where the end of the air receiver blew off and went through the wall and down the street. Lot's of history, there. Thanks for the video!

That was a real "SHOP TOUR"... Great to see the heavy metal in use....! Great Job...!

“We have this 300t homemade wheel press” Abom: Meh. Also Abom: Look at this bench vice!

I love trains. It's one of the reasons I became a machinist!

Isn't that just the coolest stuff! I love Durango. Lived there from 78 to 85. Because I have friends there I take a motorcycle trip out there from OKC most every summer. Just a beautiful area of the country! Hope you had a great time out there.

Great video and still photos. Two things I love machine tools and steam trains.

Wow! Thanks Adam and Mrs., that was a real treat.

Makes me homesick for Colorado. Never rode that train but spent a lot of time in the montains all over the state.

Hey this is an awesome vid. I got stuck in Durango about 9 years ago when my Harley had the exhaust crack. Luckily the master welder on the railroad was able to fix it, but it gave my dad and I a day to explore the city. I wish I could have gone in and saw the machine shop.

14:12 That's a nice sized Carlton, I think you'd like the one we use at work Adam. It's a Carlton 10'x26" that we use for drilling 9'x15' dies also with the 90 degree base. I should try to get a picture of it for you.

Fascinating. I took the trip in 2003, and won’t ever forget it. I believe Ed Dickens paid some dues on the D&SNGRR, and now we have a fully operational Big Boy to show for it.

Thanks for this vid. Brings back memories of when I worked in oil filed machine shops back in the 70's to mid 80's.

From North Alabama, we rode one of these trains about 4 years ago and we really enjoyed it..! Thanks for the “background “ tour..!

The heart and soul of American industrial might. God this is impressive.

Oddly enough I was telling a co worker about your channel a year or two ago. Told him you got some big boy lathes. He asked if I’d ever been to the trains machine shop when I told him I used to work there, (cleaning the cars.). Said,”they got some of the biggest lathes you’ve ever seen.” Now I get to see them lol.

Durango is one of my favorite mountain towns. Great historical station.

Thanks for taking us along on the tour and thanks to John for showing you around!

Aloha Abom, Thanks for your sharing, that is my old stomping grounds, I worked across the street at the highway department shop, its no longer there, for 21 years back it the 70's and 80's, as the machinist I could look out the window and see that operation. between Alamosa and Chama there was a lot of historical iron available and I am so happy to seeing it used and restored, I am also happy to see the progress made in the shops of the railroad. You can't believe in the progress they have made since I was there.

Dude!!!! I love that train. Rode it as a kid. I grew up in those mountains and its just the prettiest place

Wow! I lived in and around Durango and LaPlata County for 30 years, but never got to see the machine shop at the DNS RR. I have to watch it on You Tube from Abom! Great!! Great pictures. You have to remember that they have to make all their own parts; you can't just go to the local locomotive retail store and pick them up!

Boy.....this bring back memories. Got something in my eye.....

Awesome shop tour. I love those big old machines. When you start them up you can feel it in the floor. My family and I took a ride on those trains for a day in 1975 . We drove cross country from New England to CA that Summer. The Silverton train ride had to be one of the highlights. I was only 14 but was already working in a machine shop at home. Wish I could have seen the train maintenance machine shop. Thank you for sharing your tour. Take care

Wow! What a special treat for you. A guided tour, and walk around of cool old building. Thank you sir.

Man this is cool. My parents brought me here in the 90's and me and my dad got to tour the shop. Really awesome to see again ~25 years later. One of these days I'll make it back out there. Thanks for posting this Adam!

I can SMELL that shop even from t'other side of The Pond!

So glad you got to look through these shops Adam. So much awesome history....so lucky to check the machine shop out.

Great tour of the shop, Adam. Thank you, John and Durango & Silverton RR.

Thank you Abby and Adam for this great shop tour. A few years ago I made a tour with the Durango Silverton Railroad. It was a great tour. During the shop tour I saw a lot of big machines but the are mostly really unorganized. If seems to me that the machinist do not clean the machines up after a job is finished. I guess the machinist spend a lot of time with searching tools.. I personally do not like cleaning a machine first before starting a new job. Adam, you shop Organisation is really perfect. I recommend that the Durango machinist watch your dos and don’t video.

Enjoyed the video, spent 4 years in the NAVY part of it was on a repair ship out of Norfolk Va. USS VULCAN (AR5), worked in the machine shop and identified numerous machines we also had. Our "BEAST" was a 72" KING VTL that was built into the shop, part of the ship was also the top rail, man that was a monster. Also had a ROCKFORD 144" Open Side Planer, several NILES and a couple of BULLARD VTL's and 2 big Horizontal Boring Mills. Great that you could get into the shop and your tour guide was very informative. Again, GREAT VIDEO!

Amazing, thank you very much for making this vid. UK/England is miles away but rail heritage is just awe inspiring no matter which of our great nations you are in. My partner and i used to spent time up in the Catskills the little railroad up there was nice to see, never got to ride the train as the track had been washed out in the floods. The life that comes out of old steam engines is just so inspiring and addictive - probably made all engineers want to be engineers. To see inside the workshops as well, bonus.

Thanks Adam, I’m a railroader, I’m a carman, we inspect and fix all forms of train cars. I don’t get to do the kind of precision stuff you mechanists get to do, you guys have some beautiful tools, I could do my job with a torch, hammer or rock, 15/16’s, 3/4, 9/16’s wrenches and sockets. They don’t care how it looks as long as it’s fixed. Love your videos, your knowledge and love for the craft is something that keeps me watching, thanks again my man. You have me wanting to switch trades.

Here comes the Silverton up from Durango, here comes the Silverton a'shovelin' coal. Great vid!

Fantastic video! Iron, steel, brass and bronze. Lots of oil! And little if any plastic! Thanks Abby, Adam and John!

This is awesome. My family had a home near Durango, I lived in town myself for a while. I've ridden the train several times.

That American 48 (about 6:00) lathe with faceplate drive is the twin brother of the lathe I ran off and on for 15 years. Unstoppable. You could peel perfect tinfoil chips from cuts 3" wide on work 40" diameter. I bet I scored three dozen 30 and 70 ton winch drums on that lathe. Bored multi-start threads on breech rings timed to the cradle lug. I know I drove a million steam turbine buckets refurbing SSTG and main engine rotors. We had the motor arranged with a reversing contactor and a portable Start/Stop/Rev control station we could take right to the saddle. With a little practice, you could stop/jog/stop to 1/32" of the anchor hole in the winch drum. And yes, it did railroad wheels too but I'd rather machine them on a VBM unless they're already on the axle. Great machine but you'd better start the day with a good breakfast. The carriage traverse frequently broke down so you could sweat a shirt through on a cool day cranking the carriage back 12 feet. A manly lathe if ever there was one. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Hi Adam I really enjoyed this video, I did my apprentiship on the NSW railways in Australia in 60's when steam was still in use and the tour of the roundhouse and all the machinery brought back so many memories as the machines were what I was trained on and had a great time learning my trade. Steam was great.

I like the way they had fun and kidded him during the interview.

Wow that brought back a ton of memory's when I was a working at SP as a machinist foreman.

What a great video! Saw things I wished to see my entire life. Thank you Adam.

Rode the train with my daughter a few years ago love from England

I love what the kid says. I'm not a fan of these big machines. Good job kid. Oh 🤔. Love it.

Many of those babies i did my apprentice ship on. Working 72 hour work weeks. Repairing steel mill roller shafts n bearing blocks- 2,000 lbs each casting. Bored on the vbm and outside on open sided planer. Set up tools 12lb sledge hammer and 6' pry bar. Worked our butts off but id do it all over again. Learned a lot from those old machinst n friends.

Nice to see how they maintenance and rebuild everything. Massive machining!

Man. That's one beautiful train station

Love these places. Thanks for sharing. You sure know your machines Adam

What a wonderful machine shop ,Not a CNC machine in sight .Love to see those big wheel lathes in use some time.Please go back again Adam .

I like the shop tours, getting to see all those old machines is really nice.

You need to try and check out the railroad machine shop in Jamestown California - all gold rush era machines that all still fully operate on a single live axle that runs down the middle of the shop.

Magnificent country. I drove through and stayed in Ouray just beyond Silverton. Well worth the trip and Ouray is quaint and friendly.

Best train ride in the world.

Hi Adam, Greetings from France, my daughter lives with her family in Durango and she worked on the museum railway during her college years. Nice to see it again.

I miss working at the plant where I was in maintenance. We made a lot of the parts that we needed due to long lead times on factory replacements. Most of the time we made them better that the original to prevent the failures that had occurred. Great video!!!

Adam, Abby Glad you hag a good time on the Durango & Sliverton rail. I did that 20+ years ago before the fire. That is just amazingly beautiful country side.

Cumbres and Toltec is worth the price of admission too. Had a great ride, lunch, and the hospitality on the train was second to none, but I would recommend opting for the better car....There was only four of us in it and a waiter that couldn't keep our stuff full fast enough...It was awesome. Also got to tour the southern pacific centennial steam loco machine shop car. Had connections w/ the railroad police, so while everyone else got the "tourist" version, I got to see it all....

What a super interesting video this is. Also, it's great to see a place where big machine shop old-school expertise is used on a daily basis.

Incredible shop tour. Thanks for sharing Adam.

Pretty neat seeing the mechanisms behind the mechanisms.

Super cool! I’ve always wanted to see a train museum and learn more about them. 👍👍

That was very nice of John the show you two around. There is some beautiful country in the Rocky's

I'm a train enthusiast as well as a professional machinist. What a great video. You can have your cake and eat it too!!

Thank you, Adam your knowledge of old machines is amazing. Have you thought about going to a shipyard and getting a tour of there shop be interesting g to see how ships propellers a made

I love how much you geek out over a vise :-)

Saludos carnal te sigo desde hace 3 años es mi canal favorito tengo 33 años pero me enseñe en el taller de mi papá que empaz descanse pero seguimos y soy tornero de la vieja guardia como tú es una profesión muy bonita hacemos puro jale de Chrysler desde hace casi 30 años saludos hermano

What a great tour!! I used to spend a lot of time in Durango during the late 80s through late 80s in the oil/gas/power gen field. Saddens me that I never got to ride the train. But with the advent of technology, I can now get to see what I missed! Oh to be a young man again...

Thanks for the added tour to what and where they keep the trains running. That was an awesome video !!👍👍

That's awesome, I ran a big cnc gray vertical lathe some twenty years ago refurbishing 24" railroad wheels for support equipment

Adam & Abby, Awesome video on their shop & round house thanks for sharing.!.!.!.

I’ve been on that train. The scenery is just beautiful. Durango isn’t that far from were I live.

Thanks for sharing Adam. I love those NG Engines and am building the K36 in 1/5th scale 7.25ga. It's great to see their Machine Shop.

Nice to see a shop full of good old American iron, still being productive.

Thank You Adam!

I was born there in 1951. My mom and dad in 23 and 21. Still have a lot of family there. I have to ride the old D and RGW. every time I visit. one of those engines was made the year mom was born. My dad helped build the million dollar hiway,550 your route down the mountain after WW2. Enjoy your vids. very much. this one was special. Kinda like going home. I noticed the sign on the old Strater Hotel that was kinda cool too. No American lathes at my house. Have an old Hendey and a 17 inch Leblond Regal couple of mills and such to play with. Not too serious anymore. I have some fun . Really enjoy your videos. Dean Franks

Great video. Love those trains. Nice big equipment. Thank you for sharing.

Looks like you guys had a great time and John seems like a really good guy I cannot believe that they keep all those engines going with that equipment

So very cool how you can sniff out a Machine Shop and Abbie seems to enjoy it too.

Thank you John.

Thanks Adam - really interesting place.

Awesome shop! Thanks for the tour.

Very nice of them to give you that shop tour. Thanks for the video Keep up the good work !!!!

I worked here for almost 4 years about 4 years ago as a machinist. It was a great place to learn to work with manual machines, (my favorite was the polish and quartering machine) the war baby Bullard is driven by a leather belt and the staples that keep it together was so rhythmic it had almost put me to sleep when turning the tires. The homemade machine he didn't show was an old lathe bed with an 8ft arm that pivots where the headstock would have been and a grinder on the other end to grind the radius in the radius arms (8ft-ish radius). The number of comments about the cleanliness of the shop is hilarious to me (and not surprising) and that was clean, machines were maintained decently but chip bins were usually half full and the floors were always dirty. There is a joke about how most machinists could not make it here (and after working in a "clean shop" most of the guys here would not like it there), also like John said in the summer your a mechanic first, machinist second, also no prints. I used an original print once to machine a cylinder head, most parts on the engines have been fixed so many times that an Original print would not work, you had to make your own. I now work at a machine shop a few miles away that has 4 CNC mills, 5 CNC lathes, and a handful of manuals. The DSNG has been coined the "training ground" for my current company because we have had over a dozen guys over 40 years start at the DSNG machine shop and move here. It was a huge shock to go from "dirt tolerance" (enough room for dirt to escape), to now I'm running a part with +0.0003, -0.0 diameter tolerance. I do miss the excitement in the summer running up and down the engines, working swing shift trying to keep those engines running.

Best tour ever, good job Mr. Abom

My grandfather, a retired machinist, and myself road the Durango and Silverton in '79.

Had the pleasure of a trip on this line back in late 80s, I think was told they used a howitzer to clear avalanche threats. Was intrigued by the way the railroad was lashed with cable back to the pins at the cliffs. I did notice on the links to slide control a pan head coach bolt? I was a marine engineer and can't help noticing little inpefections. A great asset to have running, and for learning skills.

Thanks for taking the time to record that Adam, it's really cool to see machines in their normal habitat. I bet you were itching to work on that axle...

Thanks to Abby for those great still shots. Beautiful.

I really enjoyed this video. My grandfather was a brakeman on the same narrow gauge line in the 1930’s when it was owned and operated by the Denver and Rio Grande Western. My great grandfather worked as a machinist in the roundhouse in Alamosa, Colorado on the division of the line where engine 478 was once based. I know my grandfather worked and rode on trains 478 pulled from Alamosa to Chama, New Mexico and then on to Durango. I saw the roundhouse in Durango many years ago and remember how busy the Durango shed was at one time. That was long before the big fire. There are still four or five other roundhouses or engine sheds in existence/operation in Colorado (Silver Plume, Golden,, Durango, and defunct ones in Alamosa and Como). The last standard gauge engine maintenance facility (diesel) closed a couple of years ago in Denver. At one time there were three or four huge maintenance operations. Oh how things change! Thanks for posting this video, Adam! 👍🏻🥃

Very enjoyable video, thank you. Boy, the size of some of those machines is unreal. Abbey did a great job on the photos as well. Atb to you both from the UK.

A fantastic video. best regards from Berlin Germany.

Great video... Abby's got a great eye, those photos aren't just photos, they are works of art.

She knows how to capture so much more in a picture.