DURANGO RAILROAD

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2009
It's Saturday Morning and I am waiting to call the Narrow Gauge Railroad office which opens up at 7:00AM to make reservations. I tried last night to make reservations on line...but was told that their schedule was full. I could only make reservations for Sunday. So I went ahead and made reservations for Sunday. Now I will have to change my Hotel reservations at Mesa Verde and the time to take the train trip. Boy I really felt I messed up. I should have made the reservations 2-3 days ago. I called Saturday at 7:05 AM to change the time we could board the train on Sunday. After I had changed the time I asked the agent if there were any reservations available for Saturday? And lo behold she said I could take the Bus up to Silverton and take the train back.....Praise the Lord! We were able to take the 9:30 AM Bus and return on the 2:00 pm Train. I should tell you that one of the site seeing features of Durango is to take the Narrow Gauge Train up to Silverton. A trip of about 50 miles. Silverton is located on one the highest peaks in Co.(13,000.feet high)`
Let me should you some of the landscape
The first photo is a shot taken from the bus looking down into the valley. The second photo gives one an idea of the height and depth of the mountain range. The third photo gives you another shot of of the depth and height of the valley. If you look very close at the side of this fourth photo you will note that just below the paved road above there is a narrow gravel road. This very, very narrow gravel road was the road that the covered wagons used to travel over the mountain range. Scary huh!



This is Silverton. An old mining town At one time it had a population of 5000. Today it only boast a population of 800 in the spring and summer and about 300 in the winter.

The bus took 1 1/2 hours to climb to Silverton taking the high road. The train took us 3 1/2 hours to come down along side the river. I cannot add any more photos on this page. I will add another page on which I will add more photos of our downward train trip