Durango, Colorado.

In July, we traveled to Durango, Colorado for a week-long stay in those beautiful Rocky Mountains. We were accompanied in our excursions in the area by a friend from Buckeye, Arizona, and my sister and her friend from Albuquerque. It was a great week of relaxation.

For Journeys With Johnbo, I had two main objectives, to document the ride on the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway, and to visit Mesa Verde National Park. I took the advice of Leenie, our friend from Buckeye who spends a fair amount of time in Durango, for guidance as to what else we might do while in town.

More than typical of this blog, today’s post is about the Journey to Silverton. We will save the story about Silverton, the mining town, until another day. You might have noticed from the opening photo that there are two engines pulling the train. The company must be having a good year. They sold so many tickets that they increased the number of cars requiring the use of two engines to pull the train up the steepest grades on the route.

They couldn’t, however, just leave both engines attached to the train as some of the bridges along the way could not support the weight of the two engines. This necessitated several stops along the way. We departed Durango under the power of a single-engine. Before the first grade, we stopped so that the second tractor could be added at the front. At the conclusion of the grade, the lead engine detached and went on ahead to cross the next bridge alone and to wait for the train to catch up at the next grade. The photo above was captured from one of the open cars near the end of the train.

The line is equipped with four classes of service. The standard class features your choice of an open-air car with a row of bench seats on either side for a view unobstructed by windows or a vintage coach with forward-facing seats typical of a late-19th century experience. The windows in our coach can be opened partially allowing me to capture the scenery without having to shoot through glass. This image is of the open car that was directly in front of our car, a coach-style car.

Three other classes of cars, each an upgrade of a different style (and price range.) In previous years, they offered both a one-way trip to Silverton with a bus ride back to Durango or a round-trip train excursion that takes over 9 hours with a 2-hour layover in Silverton to explore. Since the pandemic, they are no longer running buses. We purchased the round-trip ticket to keep our options open, but Leenie met us at Silverton and we got a ride back to our rented condo with her. A one-way ticket is the same price as a round-trip ticket as of this writing.

We noticed the Animas River was running extremely muddy. I don’t know if that’s normal for July or not. The color of the river notwithstanding, the beautify of the mountain scenery is nothing short of spectacular.

Leaving Durango, elevation 6,522 feet (1988 m), we began our climb to Silverton at 9,318 feet (2840 m). The steep grades on the trip are what necessitated the second engine to help with the load of the extra cars on our run.

As we climbed, the vistas of the San Juan National Forest lay open before us. View of high-desert mesas and alpine peaks punctuated our climb up the mountain. Train purists might ask why we didn’t take the train trip back down again, especially since we paid for it. Our accommodations for the week were at the Tamarron Resort. It’s about 48 miles (77 km) on U.S. 550 from Durango to Silverton, and Tamarron is about 20 miles (32 km) north of the Durango terminal. There was no discount for a one-way, and there was only a 2.5 hour layover in Silverton where everyone on the train would be busy trying to find a place for lunch and souvenirs. Our friend, Leenie, found us a restaurant that was a bit of a walk from the train depot, far enough so that most of the other passengers chose closer restaurants.

By the time we finished lunch, the town was much emptier, and the souvenir shops and other places were less crowded. Long after our train departed for Durango, when we were ready, Leenie drove us back to Tamarron Resort, saving us double the distance of the drive from Durango to Tamarron.

If you are planning to be in the Durango area, plan to spend a day reliving life on a 19th-century train excursion and a visit to the mining town of Silverton. You can find more information on the schedules and options here.

On our journey over those narrow-gauge tracks, I captured many images of the train, the Animas River, and the San Juan National Forest. There are many more images for you to view on my Flickr site. You can see the entire collection of images in 2K HD by clicking on any of the images above where you can scroll through the entire gallery. Alternatively, you can click here to go to the Flickr album page.

But wait!!! There’s more!!! On the Flickr site, you’ll even find a few (very) short videos of the ride, and one of a waterfall that actually goes under the tracks near a water stop for the train. Enjoy!

John Steiner