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Durango

The object of my quest was to ride the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, a train I had missed on a couple of occasions. This trip being the occasion of my fiftieth year on the planet, I splurged for two nights and two rooms at the General Palmer Hotel, next door to the train station. Who is General Palmer? A Civil War veteran who built the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is who. The original ambition had been to build a line from Denver to Mexico City. Americans know the Rio Grande as the Mexican Border, but it flows to that role from Southern Colorado down through New Mexico. Anyway, he had to battle the Santa Fe railroad. The battles were fought in state and federal courts and with guns in the Royal Gorge and Raton passes. Ultimately, the narrow-gauge Denver and Rio Grande curved not South to Mexico, but West through the Rocky Mountains to tap lucrative mine traffic. They built a branch line to Silverton, where Silver and Gold were mined. (“Silver … mined by the ton!”) The last of the mines closed in 1992, but the first tourist train, “The Silverton,” began running in 1947. Durango sprouted a tourist district near the station in subsequent decades. The Durango and Silverton was spun off in 1980, and when the world isn’t on fire, steam trains run daily from Durango. Though, in the winter, they only run as far as Cascade Canyon.

The General Palmer is a comfortable hotel, ideally located for catching the morning train at 9:15. The gentle toots next door remind you that Train Time approaches, so finish breakfast! There were three options for tickets: First Class 21+, where you get to sit at a table far from any children and drink, I guess; First Class, which is a glass-top observation car built a decade ago; and Coach Class, which is upholstered seating in vintage passenger cars. I wanted to ride a properly old train, and the old coach cars have toilets, so I opted for thrifty seats with handy access to bathrooms.

The Engineer inspects D&S steam engine 482 at Durango station.

The desk clerk, himself a father, gave me a list of budget-friendly family activities. First on the list is a hamburger place on the other side of the downtown area that will serve you a burger for $3.50. That sounds swell, but when you’re travelling hamburgers become the stopgap food for when you’re hungry and desperate for something predictable. Our first night in town we dined at a saloon in the other fancy old hotel a block away. We were waited on by “saloon girls” in corsets and fishnets and sensible flat shoes. The ladies were upstaged by a guitar player. At each table there was a two-page menu of songs that he knew, and he knew others as well. We had fun singing along between bites of tasty food. The second night, after our train ride, we went to another restaurant a block away that was the sister of a concert venue. The service was stellar and the delicious food a little more creative than we had hoped. My wife had the prime rib, and I indulged a boozy milkshake for dessert.

A “postcard view” of the Durango & Silverton chugging up the mountain, the Animas River far below.

Between those dinners we caught The Train, which is the whole point of visiting Durango. General Palmer serves a breakfast buffet next to a gallery looking out at the railroad. Eat your eggs and amble over to the train at 9am. Fifteen minutes later, you start to move and smile at the gusto with which the engineer whistles the train’s way through Durango. Up the river. Higher. Higher. Before very long you’re chugging along cliff faces between a river gorge and rock walls. Trees and rocks and river, and on our journey, snow that grew from a hint of dust to a flurry of floppy wet April flakes as we climbed the mountain. There’s a reason the train only runs halfway to Silverton in April: the mountains of Colorado get extra months of Real Winter.

D&S 473 poses for photos on the Wye track at Cascade Canyon, on a wintertime excursion before the return to Durango.

It is a five-hour excursion. The passengers in coach class began to mingle. Our section was older men from the Midwest with familiar relationships to the University of Illinois and Purdue. The chatty great grandpa who used to hang drywall in Florida asked the conductor his age: seventy-eight. Great Grandpa was a mere seventy-six! Folks wandered to the snack car for something to do and we took turns standing in the open-walled observation car, gawking at the scenery and testing our camera skills until numb hands coaxed us back inside. The observation car was two back from the Engine, and as the engine chuffed over a bridge it shot off extra steam on either side. What’s going on? In a moment, we saw the rainbows!

My Sweetheart and I together on a snowy bridge over a river at the end of the world.

The train backed into a wye track at Cascade Canyon, and we had 45 minutes to frolic. I walked around the train, took selfies with the engine. The snow fell faster. The Earth was quiet. I walked back and found the end of the track, then up a short trail to a bridge over the river, just downstream from where a tributary joined. Most folks by this time had returned to the warmth of the train. My wife and I enjoyed a quiet moment with the snowy river. Back at the train, I lingered alone, enjoying the scene, the quiet, and letting the snow accumulate on my shirt. As the conductor came along, preparing for departure, I climbed back up the stairs, for our return trip to The World.

Yeah, I had a great time!