2016 (Our Momma Remembrance) Colorado Trip: Day Five
Day 5: Saturday, October 8, 2016
After a quick breakfast, the last one I would prepare, we headed to the train depot housing the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The home office of this famous railroad is a mere half mile from downtown Durango and barely 500 feet from the junction of US Highways 160 and 550. On this day, the 8th day of October, we would be “riding the rails” high up in the mountains to the town of Silverton, Colorado. Sunday, the following day, would see us travel by automobile, the forty-eight miles to Silverton over the San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway.
Today we took the narrow-gauge railroad from Durango to Silverton and back, roughly a seven-and-one-half hour ride with a two-hour layover for lunch. The official guidebook states, and I’ll let Doug take it from here, “with respect to the flag stop at Rockwood (mile marker 469.1) that, ‘As you depart Rockwood, you are leaving behind most of the modern world. Until your train reaches Silverton, there are no roads reaching into the Animas Canyon, and little has changed in appearance since the rail line was installed back in 1881-82’ (America’s Railroad: The Official Guidebook of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad by Robert T. Royem, [2002], page 54).”
The train departed Durango at 8 AM, with the arrival at Silverton scheduled for 11:30 PM. After a nice lunch at one of the local eating establishments Doug and I made our way back to the train, and by1:45 PM we were headed back down the mountain to awaiting comforts back in Durango. There was still a little daylight left as sunset for the southwestern part of Colorado was around 6:45, and we returned at 5:15 or thereabouts. For those of you who might want to take a train ride back into yesteryear the website is www.durangotrain.com.
I did not take many photos on our train ride as the glare from the morning sun made for difficult lighting, and I was shooting through a window which made reflections through the glass an annoying problem. However, I was glad I took the trip, and do look forward to riding the rails again.
The Animas River, which starts high in the San Juan Mountains, near Silverton, flows south through the Animas Valley past Durango and into the state of New Mexico before turning west and emptying into the San Juan River. The Durango & Silverton Railroad follows this river through that valley and as such allows the traveler a beautiful view as they travel the forty-five miles of track that connects Durango and Silverton, Colorado. The narrow gauge track, a type used in mountainous country, was built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1882 to transport gold and silver that was mined in the San Juan Mountains. In March 1981, the D&RGW sold the line and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge railroad was formed. For a more succinct description, of the river and the canyon in which it flows, I’ll turn to Doug:
For much of its route, the railroad parallels the Animas River and its deep, shear-walled canyon. It has a greenish tint, but the Animas River epitomizes everything you associate with mountain streams: clear, fast-flowing water and plenty of rapids. This river’s name is rooted in its poetic Spanish designation, Rio de las Animas Perdidas, which means “River of Lost Souls,” a tribute to a member of the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition who, in 1776, drowned in the river (One Drive in a Million by Branson Reynolds [1994], pages 10-11).
Once you get on the train, it’s a pretty much non-stop ride until you reach Silverton, or Durango, if you start from Silverton, with a couple of exceptions. Doug can tell it better: “Two flag stops can be used by backpackers to enter the San Juan backcountry: Needleton (mile marker 483.3, 13.6 miles from the terminal in Silverton), which provides access to the Chicago Basin via the Needle Creek trail, which starts at a footbridge crossing the Animas River; and Elk Park (mile marker 490.7, which is 5.8 miles from Silverton), which provides direct access to the Grenadier Range. The guidebook also states that, at mile marker 491.3, which is 5.6 miles from Silverton, ‘the bridge across the Animas River near Molas Creek is part of the Colorado trail system that connects Denver to Durango. From here the trail leads toward Elk Park in one direction and up to Molas Pass in the other’ (America’s Railroad: The Official Guidebook of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad by Robert T. Royem [2002], pages 65, 69-70).”
The town of Silverton, with a population of around 600, is the county seat of San Juan County, Colorado. This community high up in the San Juan Mountains, is the only incorporated municipality in a very remote part of this scenic mountain range in the Rocky Mountains. The town of Silverton sits at 9,318 feet and is surrounded by steep peaks, most of which top 13,000 feet, with Storm Peak, at 13,487 feet being the tallest. In addition, there are seven of Colorado’s fifty-eight famed 14ers within fifteen miles.
The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad was established in 1882 and averages between 150,000-160,000 passengers per year. The touring season runs from late May through the end of October, with two trains running per day starting at 8 AM.
In addition to one of a group of locomotives produced in the 1920s, the most typical configuration for this train includes five “studio” cars, one car devoted exclusively to provision of concessions (water, soft drinks, coffee, snacks etc.) and two premium cars, which provide more modern amenities and finer cuisine. Two of the coach cars currently in service were produced in 1883 and 1884, respectively. As it turned out, we rode on one of those “original” railcars, the one made in 1883, which had, of course, been refitted with seats that dated to perhaps the 1960s.
Although we enjoyed the scenery as we traveled, old-style, up the side of the mountain, there was one major problem with the seating arrangements. I was crammed up against the window while Doug was sitting half on and half off the seat. For future trips, I will buy, provided I can afford it, two seats so that I can have the entire bench to myself. I’ll let Doug’s explanation cover it:
“Seating constitutes the only logistical flaw in services, but it is a major problem. I don’t know what the length of these seats is, but they absolutely should be replaced with ones more appropriate to the size of 21st century derrières. This may not be problematic for an adult sitting with a child, but it most certainly is a royal headache for two 200+ pound adults, especially on a ride lasting ca. 7 ½ hours. I literally was saddle sore that night, due to the necessity of sitting with the left half of my rear end off of the seat. The accelerated side-to-side rocking created by descent only magnified this discomfort on the return leg of our trip. I literally felt like I needed a chiropractic adjustment after disembarking the train.”
According to the conductor, the current uniforms of D & S NGRR personnel closely resemble those worn by their early counterparts. Doug asked the conductor something that we had wondered about. Hollywood, which we all know, can screw up history rather badly, likes to depict someone uncoupling a train car while it’s moving. One of the latest instances was the Johnny Depp version of The Lone Ranger filmed in 2013, in which his “Tonto” character did uncouple a car while the train was moving at a quick pace. The conductor assured us that, due to redundancy systems, such an act was impossible.
A nice, personalized touch was provided by an onboard photographer affiliated with the railroad. Passengers were photographed, as well as a separate stock image, presumably, of the locomotive and combined into a nice little package as a memento of the excursion. Turnaround time for production of these products was exceptional. Passengers were photographed on the way to Silverton, the images were processed at their print facility in Silverton, and the finished product was available for sale to passengers on the return leg of our journey. I don’t remember the price, but it was reasonable.
We arrived back at the KOA campground just as the University of Tennessee-Texas A&M game was finishing. Although the Vols lost, it was a great game that we missed. The men in orange found themselves trailing by three touchdowns in the third quarter but behind the play of quarterback Joshua Dobbs and running back Alvin Kamara, they mounted a spirited comeback that saw them tie the score at 35-all with less than a minute in regulation. The Aggies, however defeated the Volunteers in double-overtime.
We ate out that night, but I don’t remember where. We hit the sack fairly early so we could hit the (not so) dusty trail early the next day. I was really looking forward to the next three days in what I refer to as the San Juans proper, or some of the finest real estate in the lower forty-eight.
