Oh boy, a bucket list trip for certain! This has been on my radar screen for many many years. My Dad (a rail fan who would actually wear his engineers hat around the house) and I had aspirations of this trip for years. Until now, only my sister Janet and her family had made the trip when her children were younger as part of camping vacation. Her raves came echoing back as I contemplated being less than a four hour drive from Durango, CO. How could I pass it up? Sarah was all for it so off we went from John Ford Country.
We made hotel and train reservations on the way and when we arrived in Durango we were rewarded with the sweet lonesome sound of a steam engine whistle. Nothing else like it. I hurried down to the station which was only two blocks away and quickly found myself wandering the train yards and roundhouse. This all took me back to my youth, visiting my grandparents in Shamokin, PA. The Pennsy's main line to Williamsport ran through town and the trains were loaded with ore headed for the Bethlehem Steel plant. The line had tough grades and curves and only steam engines could handle the heavy ore trains. What a kids delight, two huge engines at the front of the train, two in the middle and two pushers at the rear. The engineers communicated by train whistles in that age before electronic communication. I would hear the whistles as the trains rounded into town and rush from my grandparents house to the nearest crossing, standing in awe as these six monster engines huffed past me, blowing steam from their relief valves and the six engineers playing tunes on their steam whistles. What a sight, what a sound!
The Durango & Silverton is a narrow gauge railway built to serve the mining boom in Silverton, CO in the 1880's and makes the 45 mile trip from Durango to Silverton by following the Animus River. One section of the railroad, The High Line, runs over 300 feet above the Animus River on a narrow shelf that was blasted out of the mountain side to make room for the rails. It's quite a sight to be literally looking straight down into the gorge from your seat on the train. A bit scary too!
The train stops twice to refill the tender with water. It takes a lot of steam to make it up the 2.5% grade to Silverton. Each of these stops is a photo-op for the rail fan.
We looked for elk, bears and other wild life along the way. Mule deer grazed along the tracks, oblivious to the noise of the train.
After a scenic 3 hour ride through the Animus Valley, mountain gorges and along the Animus River bed we made it to Silverton, a shadow of the once bustling mining town that was served by four rail roads. We lunched at the Bent Elbow and shopped for hand crafted Indian jewelry on Main Street with Sarah scoring a sterling silver bracelet inlaid with turquoise and jasper (the great boot hunt was again unsuccessful).
On the return trip I was able to shoot several IPhone video clips including one catching the train whistle which were promptly sent to our grandkids, Jasper and Magnolia.
As we packed the car to start the return East I reflected on the many years that this train trip had been subliminally in my mind. I thought, Dad, you would have loved it!
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