Cumbres & Toltec 50th anniversary brings rare steam engines together

This week, to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of Colorado's historic Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, the rail line is hosting a gathering of 10 operating steam locomotives — the first of its kind this century.

Based in Antonito and Chama, N.M., the rail line runs over the top of Cumbres Pass in southwestern Colorado, topping out at 10,015 feet above sea level — one of the highest railroads in the United States when it was completed in 1880.

Through Aug. 29, the railroad is celebrating its longevity with the 19th Century Iron Horse Round-up. The event includes 10 operating steam locomotives, five of which were built before 1900. Two locomotives, the Glenbrook and the Eureka, built in 1875, have been brought in from Nevada to join two D&RG pre-1900 locomotives based in Antonito: No. 168, built in 1883, and No. 425, built in 1895, as well as the Rio Grande and Southern No. 20, built in 1899.

Of special interest to Colorado Springs residents: Locomotive No. 168, which sat on display in Antlers Park from 1938 to 2015, has been restored to operation and will be pulling cars up the pass all week.

Purchased by Gen. William Jackson Palmer as a passenger locomotive, No. 168 operated on Denver & Rio Grande tracks all over Colorado. It once transported President William Howard Taft to Montrose in September 1909 for the opening of the 5.8-mile Gunnison Tunnel — at the time the longest irrigation tunnel in the world. No. 168 was moved from its pedestal in Colorado Springs to Antonito in 2015, and restoration was completed in 2019 at a cost of $508,000.

“It runs beautifully,” said Scott Gibbs, C&TSRR commissioner for Colorado. “It’s amazing to see a train with a locomotive from 1883 and some rail cars that were built in the 1880s and realize that was the mode of transportation in that time period."

Volunteers have been working for more than a year to prepare for the event and have steam locomotives, restored rail cars, a steam-powered pile driver and crane, and other equipment on display. Demonstrations and railyard train movements are scheduled, and docents are on hand to help visitors understand the history of narrow gauge railroading in Colorado.

The nine-day event schedules special charters to create historic combinations of restored railcars and locomotives called “consists.” These special charters take passengers up and down the historic Cumbres Pass route, stopping to allow photographers and videographers to set up so the train can run by them at some of the many scenic spots along the 64 mile trip.

The special charters sold out within three days of being announced in early 2020, when the anniversary event was first scheduled. It had to be rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most people left their money with the railroad in anticipation of the 2021 rescheduling of the event.

However, a selection of daily trips is still available, giving riders an experience that can be enjoyed in only a few other places in the world — one that takes them back to the 1800s to ride the very rolling stock pulled by the same engines used by the D&RG to haul freight, animals and people through Colorado and New Mexico for more than eight decades.

Visitors can also watch the trains from many vantage points along Highway 17, which runs from Antonito to Chama. Part of the rail line runs up a different canyon than Highway 17, which tops La Manga pass before rejoining the railroad route near Cumbres Pass, where the railroad has a station and switching yard at which tourists can see the trains close-up.

A ticket to westward expansion

Westward expansion and economic development depended on railroads as the most efficient form of travel long before adequate roads through the mountains were developed. While pioneers traveled by foot, horseback and wagon, a trip from Denver to the San Luis Valley could take weeks over bad roads. Getting to the more remote mining camps scattered throughout the state could take a month.

But with a railroad, a trip from Denver over La Veta Pass to Antonito, Chama, Durango and on to the mining town of Silverton might take only two days. By 1881, more than 700 miles of narrow gauge track had been constructed in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

Narrow gauge, meaning 3 feet between the rails, was chosen over standard gauge, which measures 4 feet 8 1/2 inches, because the narrower tracks allowed the tracks and trains to turn more tightly, thus allowing more flexibility in the choice of roadbed building in the mountains.

Originally commissioned by Palmer in 1870, the D&RG railway company was tasked with building routes from Denver and Colorado Springs south to El Paso, Texas, and eventually to Mexico City, as well as routes west from Walsenburg to the San Luis Valley and westward, hauling supplies and people to mining towns including Leadville and Silverton.

The line to El Paso and Mexico City never came to fruition due to finances and fierce competition, complete with gunfights, with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad at Raton Pass. Losing a legal battle over the Mexico City route, the company turned its attention to the booming mining activity in central and southwestern Colorado in 1876, when the territory of Colorado became a state.

Narrow gauge railroads in Colorado persisted through good times and bad, prospering during the silver mining boom that ended abruptly with the 1893 repeal of the 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act that required the U.S. government to buy at least 4.5 million ounces worth of silver bullion each month at market price to coin silver dollars.

With a glut on the market and no more mandated government purchases, silver mining collapsed all over the U.S., and Colorado was hit hard by the “panic of 1893.”

Paved roads, COVID deliver blows to narrow gauge

The D&RG survived and saw another boom when oil fields were developed in northwestern New Mexico. The railroad shipped thousands of crude oil tank cars from the oil fields to an Alamosa refinery and brought in drilling equipment, supplies and workers to the oil fields. It also transported timber, livestock and agricultural products, as well as tourists to and from the fertile San Luis Valley and beyond.

But with the advent of paved roads and trucking, by 1951 the D&RG, now the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, was in decline as narrow gauge and steam locomotives were no longer profitable. Much of the trackage was either torn up or converted to standard gauge, although occasional tourist trains ran as late as 1966.

In 1967, the nation stood to lose one of the last remaining remnants of the narrow-gauge railroad system that built Colorado. The D&RGW petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon the route between Chama and Farmington, N.M., as well as the Cumbres Pass extension on Sept. 18, 1967.

Then-Gov. John Love of Colorado and then-Gov. David Cargo of New Mexico each signed legislation to purchase 64 miles of track and the railyards between Antonito and Chama, nine locomotives and more than 130 freight, work and passenger cars for $547,120.

After the D&RGW refused to consider an extension of time for someone to purchase the line from Chama to Durango and Farmington, the company scrapped those tracks when the states were unable to make an offer to purchase the line.

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad Commission was established by Love and Cargo, both for historic preservation and as an economic engine for Southwest Colorado and Northern New Mexico. The railroad was carrying tourist passengers the next year, after many months of work by railroad enthusiasts to restore locomotives and passenger cars.

In the 50 years since the C&TSRR was formed, the railroad has carried passengers from Memorial Day until sometime in the last week of October, depending on the advent of winter weather. The railroad was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2012.

The COVID pandemic hit the tourist railroad hard in 2020. The celebration was planned for last year but was postponed because of the virus. Even now, many fans of the railroad from other countries who had reservations and waited an entire year to come have been disappointed by the emergence of the delta variant of the virus and subsequent travel restrictions elsewhere. Many were given refunds, but some told Gibbs to keep the money as a donation.

“Two years ago, before COVID, we had about 42,000, almost 43,000 riders,” said Gibbs. “Last year we only had 11,000 because of all the COVID shutdown. We’re recovering this year; at the end of July we were about 99 percent of ridership from 2019.”

Owned by both states, the C&RSRR is managed by a board of four commissioners, two from each state, appointed by the governors. 

A promising future in the hands of volunteers

But the real work is done by volunteers who donate their time to repair and restore the rolling stock.

The Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railway, a nonprofit corporation, started shortly after the railroad was formed. The group has more than 2,500 members from across the U.S. and the world whose job it is to find, acquire and restore what is left of the thousands of rail cars that once carried commerce throughout the region.

As many as 150 members come to Antonito and Chama every summer for a week or two to work on restoring rail cars of all descriptions. Due to federal rules, only certified rail personnel employed by the C&TSRR are allowed to work on the locomotives themselves.

Both states put money into the railroad each year, but ticket sales and donations are essential to the preservation of the railroad.

Don Stewart, Chairman of the Board of the Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, retired from a career designing state-of-the-art gas turbine engines. One of his designs is now flying as a secondary power unit in the F-22 and the F-35 fighters.

Stewart, 70, retired in 2013 and began what he calls a second career with the Friends, becoming chairman of the board in 2017. Administrative duties are “challenging at times” Stewart says, but really he loves getting his hands dirty working on the railroad. 

“Oh, I love doing that, it’s the best part of the whole thing,“ Stewart said.

Many of the friends are growing old — some are in their 70s and 80s, and many of them have been coming to Antonito for 20 to 30 years, sometimes longer.

Asked if steam locomotive technology is a dying art, Gibbs says the mystique of steam still resonates with young people. 

Asked what the future holds for the railroad, Gibbs is optimistic.

“There is a next generation,” Gibbs said. “We’ve got a crew of people in their 20s and 30s here at the railroad who have fallen in love with this steam technology and this railroad.”

Gibbs, though optimistic, would love to see more young people exposed to the history of steam technology because it’s good for the trains and it’s good for the young people, who can learn things that cannot be learned anywhere else, he says.

“It’s wonderful to see people of that generation who want to be engaged and continue this and work on it to preserve the history for the future,” Gibbs said.

“When the railroad was purchased, it was sort of a two-part charter. It was to preserve the history in a living museum and allow people to experience traveling across narrow gauge track behind a steam engine that dates from 1925. And the other piece of it was economic development for the region down here in Conejos County, over in Rio Arriba County and Archuleta County.”

For 50 years — longer than many of the historic rail lines it was part of existed — the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad seems to have fulfilled its charter.