The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, often shortened to Rio Grande, D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado, in 1870. It served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.
Durango is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of La Plata County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 19,071 at the 2020 United States Census. Durango is the home of Fort Lewis College.
The Royal Gorge is a canyon of the Arkansas River located west of Cañon City, Colorado. The canyon begins at the mouth of Grape Creek, about 2 mi (3.2 km) west of central Cañon City, and continues in a west-northwesterly direction for approximately 6 mi (9.7 km) until ending near U.S. Route 50. Being one of the deepest canyons in Colorado, it is also known as the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas (River), with a maximum depth of 1,250 ft (380 m). The canyon is also very narrow, measuring from 50 ft (15 m) wide at its base to 300 ft (91 m) wide at its top, as it carves a path through the granite formations below Fremont Peak and YMCA Mountain, which rise above the north and south rims, respectively.
William Jackson Palmer was an American civil engineer and veteran of the American Civil War. During the Civil War, he was promoted to brevet brigadier general and received a Medal of Honor for his actions.
Ratón Pass is a 7,834 ft (2,388 m) elevation mountain pass on the Colorado–New Mexico border in the western United States. It is located on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Trinidad, Colorado and Raton, New Mexico, approximately 180 miles (290 km) northeast of Santa Fe. Ratón is Spanish for "mouse". The pass crosses the line of volcanic mesas that extends east from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains along the state line, and furnishes the most direct land route between the valley of the Arkansas River to the north and the upper valley of the Canadian River, leading toward Santa Fe, to the south. The pass now carries Interstate 25 and railroad tracks.
The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, often abbreviated as the D&SNG, is a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge heritage railroad that operates on 45.2 miles (72.7 km) of track between Durango and Silverton, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The railway is a federally-designated National Historic Landmark and was also designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1968.
The Colorado Railroad Museum is a non-profit railroad museum. The museum is located on 15 acres (6.1 ha) at a point where Clear Creek flows between North and South Table Mountains in Golden, Colorado.
Railroad Wars were business rivalries between railroad companies, which occurred frequently in American history. Although they were usually little more than legal disputes inside a courtroom, they sometimes turned into armed conflicts. There has been competition between railroad companies since the beginning of railroading in the United States, but violent confrontations were most common in the final quarter of the 19th century, particularly in the Old West.
The Colorado Pacific Rio Grande Railroad is a class III railroad operating in south-central Colorado. It runs on 154 miles (248 km) of former Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad tracks on three lines radiating from Alamosa and interchanges with the Union Pacific Railroad in Walsenburg. Much of the railroad is located in the San Luis Valley. In 2022, it was purchased by Stefan Soloviev.
The Royal Gorge Route Railroad is a heritage railroad based in Cañon City, Colorado. A 1950s-era train makes daily 2-hour excursion runs from the Santa Fe Depot through the Royal Gorge along a famous section of the former Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
The Utah Division of the former Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) is a rail line that connects Grand Junction, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah in the Western United States. It is now incorporated into the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) system as part of the Central Corridor. The modern Union Pacific has split the line into two subdivisions for operational purposes, the Green River Subdivision between Grand Junction and Helper, Utah and the Provo Subdivision from Helper to Salt Lake City. Daily passenger service is provided by Amtrak's California Zephyr; the BNSF Railway and Utah Railway have trackage rights over the line.
The Curecanti Needle is a 700-ft granite spire located on the Gunnison River in western Colorado. A notable landmark to generations of natives and pioneers, the Needle is located on the southern bank of Morrow Point Reservoir, an impoundment of the Gunnison river between Gunnison and Montrose, Colorado. Used for many years as an advertising symbol for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, whose narrow-gauge railway famously ran along the northern bank of the river and passed near the Needle, the spire is today part of the Curecanti National Recreation Area, a National Park Service facility that encompasses three impoundments of the Gunnison river, including Morrow Point Reservoir.
The Rio Grande Scenic Railroad of Colorado was a heritage railway that operated from 2006 to 2019 in and around the San Luis Valley as a subsidiary of the San Luis and Rio Grande Railroad. The heritage railroad ceased operating excursions following a wildfire that damaged some of their facilities, as well as the parent company SLRG entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2019.
The Chili Line, officially known as the Santa Fe Branch, was a 3 ft narrow-gauge branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW). It ran 125.6 miles (202.1 km) from Antonito, Colorado, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Denver and Rio Grande Railway (D&RG) began construction of the line in 1880 and completed the line from Antonito to Española, New Mexico, but could not build any further because of an agreement with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF). The Texas, Santa Fe and Northern Railroad was incorporated to complete the line, and the line between Española and Santa Fe opened in 1886 and was transferred to the Denver and Rio Grande shortly thereafter. The D&RGW closed the Chili Line in 1941 because of competition from road transportation, and the line was abandoned shortly thereafter.
Denver and Rio Grande Western No. 315 is a class "C-18" 2-8-0 "Consolidation" type narrow-gauge steam locomotive that was originally built for the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1895. It was purchased by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG) in 1917 and later became known as No. 315. It was retired in 1949 and had been on display at City of Durango parks until the Durango Railroad Historical Society restored the locomotive from 2001 to August 2007. It was operational from then until September 2021. On March 8, 2023, it returned to service, following its FRA federally mandated 1,472-day boiler inspection and overhaul. Most "sister" locomotives to No. 315 were scrapped, but two others survive today: D&RGW No. 318, on display at the Colorado Railroad Museum; and F&CC No. 10, currently in storage at the Nevada Southern Railroad Museum.
Denver and Rio Grande Western 223 is a 2-8-0 "Consolidation" type narrow-gauge steam locomotive built for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad by the Grant Locomotive Works of Paterson, New Jersey in 1881–82. Number 223 was completed in December 1881, at a cost of $11,553. Rio Grande 223 is the only surviving narrow-gauge engine built by Grant Locomotive Works. D&RGW 223 and the other Class 60 engines were part of the Rio Grande's expansion into Colorado and Utah in the 1880s.
The Alamosa–Durango line or San Juan extension was a railroad line built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, following the border between the U.S. states of Colorado and New Mexico, in the Rocky Mountains. The line was originally built as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line between Alamosa, Colorado, and Durango, Colorado. Portions of the route survive: the now standard-gauged segment from Alamosa to Antonito, Colorado, and a narrow-gauge portion from Antonito to Chama, New Mexico.
The Colorado Joint Line is a railway corridor in Colorado running north-south between Denver and Pueblo. Presently the tracks are owned by the BNSF Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad and operated jointly.
Rio Grande 268 is a 2-8-0 "Consolidation" type narrow-gauge steam locomotive built for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1882. It is one of three surviving locomotives in D&RG class 60.
