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The wind chill is about 20 degrees — a dismaying temperature for Memorial Day weekend, but Tim and I don’t care. We’re here to ride the Georgetown Loop Railroad, and we congratulate ourselves that we don’t even notice the cold.
Well, almost.
The romance of the rails is always with us in Colorado, thanks to the foresight of historical societies which, after World War II, realized the importance of preserving this most fascinating — and important — part of America’s transportation heritage.
Ever since we moved to Colorado, we’ve wanted to take the Georgetown Loop Railroad, which traverses over 3.1 miles of narrow gauge track laid onto the mountainous surface, scaling an elevation of 640 feet. The trip is famous for being one of the few narrow gauge train rides still in existence; narrow gauge track is spaced at only three feet between the rails, which is more than 20 inches narrower than standard rail spacing.
Several Colorado trains are famous for these narrow gauge tracks, built so to negotiate the steep, narrow pathways cut into the mountains during Colorado’s mining heyday.
As we wait at the station, we notice a family wrapped in southwestern-motif blankets. When the train pulls in, we opt to ride in one of the gondolas — the open-air ore carts converted into cars — in spite of the cold.
We sit next to the family in blankets and meet Sarah, who used to work as a tour guide at the Lebanon Mine and has taken many a trip on the Georgetown Loop. This time, she has brought along her husband, her 2-year-old son Alden, and her parents visiting from Wisconsin.
“People always come out here totally unprepared for the weather — especially in the early spring and fall,” Sarah tells us, explaining her blankets, which we covet, in spite of our heavy coats.
Alden, dressed in berry red fleece, has an ecstatic smile on his face throughout the whole trip.
“Alden, do you want to ride on the train all day?” his grandmother asks him.
“ ‘Ess!” he replies, nodding enthusiastically.
As the engine lets out a melancholy blast, Sarah explains the whistle code — one is for stop, two is for forward, while a combination of long and short signals that the bridge is ahead.
While the train can go up to speeds of 12 miles an hour, it’s only allowed a maximum of four miles per hour on the bridge — and when you see the bridge, you understand why.
The photos of the famed Devil’s Gate High Bridge look frightening, but on the train you don’t actually get the sensation of riding with a sheer drop cliff at both sides — it’s just a glorious view.
The history of the Georgetown Loop Railroad is almost as fascinating as the view itself.
In 1871, town officials from Georgetown officials met with representatives from the Colorado Central Railroad to figure out a way to haul ore from the silver rich lodes in the region. Tycoon Jay Gould helped finance the railroad’s extension from Denver to Georgetown in 1877. The railroad was not only used for passengers, but was also used to freight ore from the famed local Lebanon Mine.
By the 1880s, the Georgetown Loop Railroad, so named because of the hairpin turns necessary to complete the round trip, had become a tourist attraction, with seven trips a day from Denver at a fare of $3 a round trip.
But in the 1900s, with the advent of the automobile, the iron horse in America started to hear its death knell. In 1938, the Denver-Silver Plume train made its final run, and the Georgetown Loop train was dismantled.
With the 1959 centenary celebration of Georgetown’s first gold strike, both the Georgetown Loop and the Lebanon Mine were looked at with renewed interest as tourist attractions. In 1973 construction began on the narrow gauge rail line, with materials donated by Union Pacific. By 1975 the reconstructed Georgetown Loop was up and running again, with track additions made during the next nine years.
We decide to leave the train at the Lebanon Mine station in order to take the Lebanon Mine Tour, which is offered for a small extra fee. We highly recommend it. Somehow, touring the old silver mine, first opened in 1869, brings home the meaning of why these narrow gauge trains were originally created.
As we reach the mine, we’re warmly greeted by guide tours Nick, Holly, and Osso the Mountain Dog, the most enchanting border collie mix you’ll ever meet at an abandoned silver mine.
The romance of the rails has entered Osso’s soul too — he eagerly awaits each train as it stops, so he can greet every passenger as they debark. He also accompanies the mine tours all day long with unflagging energy and interest, to the delight of the visitors.
Before taking us into the cavernous mine entrance, Nick shows us the four authentically recreated mine buildings — the changing room, the manager’s room, the blacksmith’s shop, and the tool shed — all reconstructed from the original photographic images.
At 500 feet below ground, the atmosphere inside is what you would expect, dank and chilly at a constant temperature of 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Calcite and silver deposits are still massed on the walls, and in one particular stope we’re allowed to touch the calcite deposits which follow the veins of silver below. The calcite feels like thick, cold water on our fingertips.
Nick shows us the “widowmaker” drill, so-called because of the way it spewed silicate directly into the miner’s lungs, and invites us to sit in the miners’ “break room”—a series of hard benches shoved against the rock — as he explains the many uses for a miner’s lunch pail. It’s a fascinating tour, and at the end we feel we could do it all over again — but Osso barks, letting us know that the next train is approaching.
This time we take Engine 21 back, which can only pull four cars, so we make a mad dash to the single open-air gondola. If you can stand the diesel smell, it’s great fun to ride up front behind the engine, so you can get a good view of how the train switches tracks when it stops, with the help of flat levers only a couple of inches long laid into the tracks.
On the return trip, we talk to Willie the conductor, a Georgetown native who is starting his fourth season with the railroads. Willie tells me that he’s probably seen 500 passengers on the train today.
“Our all-time record for a single day was 1,000, back two years ago — I remember that day well,” he recalls with a laugh.
Willie, who lives in the tiny town of Silver Plume, population around 200, said that he has seen people from all over the world ride on the train, many of them traveling on special tour packages created to showcase the great train rides of America.
As we pull back into the station, Willie tells us about the 85-ton diesel Engine “21” which was built in the 1940s. In a month or two, the turn-of-the-century steam engines which are more commonly used by the Georgetown Railroad and are currently being rebuilt, will be ready to use again, and the diesel engines will be put back in storage.
“I can’t wait for the steam engines to come back, but the diesel engines are fun to ride too,” he says as we pull back into the Silver Plume station. As Conductor Willie bids us goodbye, he shakes his head nostalgically.
“There’s nothing like the romance of a train,” he says.
Well, almost.
The romance of the rails is always with us in Colorado, thanks to the foresight of historical societies which, after World War II, realized the importance of preserving this most fascinating — and important — part of America’s transportation heritage.
Ever since we moved to Colorado, we’ve wanted to take the Georgetown Loop Railroad, which traverses over 3.1 miles of narrow gauge track laid onto the mountainous surface, scaling an elevation of 640 feet. The trip is famous for being one of the few narrow gauge train rides still in existence; narrow gauge track is spaced at only three feet between the rails, which is more than 20 inches narrower than standard rail spacing.
Several Colorado trains are famous for these narrow gauge tracks, built so to negotiate the steep, narrow pathways cut into the mountains during Colorado’s mining heyday.
As we wait at the station, we notice a family wrapped in southwestern-motif blankets. When the train pulls in, we opt to ride in one of the gondolas — the open-air ore carts converted into cars — in spite of the cold.
We sit next to the family in blankets and meet Sarah, who used to work as a tour guide at the Lebanon Mine and has taken many a trip on the Georgetown Loop. This time, she has brought along her husband, her 2-year-old son Alden, and her parents visiting from Wisconsin.
“People always come out here totally unprepared for the weather — especially in the early spring and fall,” Sarah tells us, explaining her blankets, which we covet, in spite of our heavy coats.
Alden, dressed in berry red fleece, has an ecstatic smile on his face throughout the whole trip.
“Alden, do you want to ride on the train all day?” his grandmother asks him.
“ ‘Ess!” he replies, nodding enthusiastically.
As the engine lets out a melancholy blast, Sarah explains the whistle code — one is for stop, two is for forward, while a combination of long and short signals that the bridge is ahead.
While the train can go up to speeds of 12 miles an hour, it’s only allowed a maximum of four miles per hour on the bridge — and when you see the bridge, you understand why.
The photos of the famed Devil’s Gate High Bridge look frightening, but on the train you don’t actually get the sensation of riding with a sheer drop cliff at both sides — it’s just a glorious view.
The history of the Georgetown Loop Railroad is almost as fascinating as the view itself.
In 1871, town officials from Georgetown officials met with representatives from the Colorado Central Railroad to figure out a way to haul ore from the silver rich lodes in the region. Tycoon Jay Gould helped finance the railroad’s extension from Denver to Georgetown in 1877. The railroad was not only used for passengers, but was also used to freight ore from the famed local Lebanon Mine.
By the 1880s, the Georgetown Loop Railroad, so named because of the hairpin turns necessary to complete the round trip, had become a tourist attraction, with seven trips a day from Denver at a fare of $3 a round trip.
But in the 1900s, with the advent of the automobile, the iron horse in America started to hear its death knell. In 1938, the Denver-Silver Plume train made its final run, and the Georgetown Loop train was dismantled.
With the 1959 centenary celebration of Georgetown’s first gold strike, both the Georgetown Loop and the Lebanon Mine were looked at with renewed interest as tourist attractions. In 1973 construction began on the narrow gauge rail line, with materials donated by Union Pacific. By 1975 the reconstructed Georgetown Loop was up and running again, with track additions made during the next nine years.
We decide to leave the train at the Lebanon Mine station in order to take the Lebanon Mine Tour, which is offered for a small extra fee. We highly recommend it. Somehow, touring the old silver mine, first opened in 1869, brings home the meaning of why these narrow gauge trains were originally created.
As we reach the mine, we’re warmly greeted by guide tours Nick, Holly, and Osso the Mountain Dog, the most enchanting border collie mix you’ll ever meet at an abandoned silver mine.
The romance of the rails has entered Osso’s soul too — he eagerly awaits each train as it stops, so he can greet every passenger as they debark. He also accompanies the mine tours all day long with unflagging energy and interest, to the delight of the visitors.
Before taking us into the cavernous mine entrance, Nick shows us the four authentically recreated mine buildings — the changing room, the manager’s room, the blacksmith’s shop, and the tool shed — all reconstructed from the original photographic images.
At 500 feet below ground, the atmosphere inside is what you would expect, dank and chilly at a constant temperature of 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Calcite and silver deposits are still massed on the walls, and in one particular stope we’re allowed to touch the calcite deposits which follow the veins of silver below. The calcite feels like thick, cold water on our fingertips.
Nick shows us the “widowmaker” drill, so-called because of the way it spewed silicate directly into the miner’s lungs, and invites us to sit in the miners’ “break room”—a series of hard benches shoved against the rock — as he explains the many uses for a miner’s lunch pail. It’s a fascinating tour, and at the end we feel we could do it all over again — but Osso barks, letting us know that the next train is approaching.
This time we take Engine 21 back, which can only pull four cars, so we make a mad dash to the single open-air gondola. If you can stand the diesel smell, it’s great fun to ride up front behind the engine, so you can get a good view of how the train switches tracks when it stops, with the help of flat levers only a couple of inches long laid into the tracks.
On the return trip, we talk to Willie the conductor, a Georgetown native who is starting his fourth season with the railroads. Willie tells me that he’s probably seen 500 passengers on the train today.
“Our all-time record for a single day was 1,000, back two years ago — I remember that day well,” he recalls with a laugh.
Willie, who lives in the tiny town of Silver Plume, population around 200, said that he has seen people from all over the world ride on the train, many of them traveling on special tour packages created to showcase the great train rides of America.
As we pull back into the station, Willie tells us about the 85-ton diesel Engine “21” which was built in the 1940s. In a month or two, the turn-of-the-century steam engines which are more commonly used by the Georgetown Railroad and are currently being rebuilt, will be ready to use again, and the diesel engines will be put back in storage.
“I can’t wait for the steam engines to come back, but the diesel engines are fun to ride too,” he says as we pull back into the Silver Plume station. As Conductor Willie bids us goodbye, he shakes his head nostalgically.
“There’s nothing like the romance of a train,” he says.
If you go ..
The Georgetown Loop Railroad runs daily from May 24 through Oct. 13. Tickets are $21.50 for adults and $16.50 for children 3-15; ages 2 and under are free. The train ride with the mine tour is $29.50 for adults and $22.50 for children 3-15. For more information and schedules, call 1-888-456-6777 or visit www.georgetownlooprr.com.
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