C&S 71: Scrap Train to Casino

 In May of 2024 my our family took a road trip to Colorado. Our first goal was to pick up our oldest daughter who spent the year studying at Worldview at the Abbey, a biblical studies program. We decided to stay for nearly a month and enjoy the mountains and, of course, do a lot of C&S exploring.

I hadn't been to Central City, home to C&S 71 and her train, since 1992. My first visit to No. 71 was in 1990 as a teenager. Our family had hoped to ride behind No. 71 as printed tourist guides at the time listed it as active (Here is a 1989 video showing her at work). Unfortunately, we arrived and only found this:

That is yours truly at age 14. I was happy to see No. 71, but disappointed that not a living soul was around and 71 was cold with a flatcar of junk on her prow. Our family returned in 1992 to find this:

I knew by this point that the tourist route that ran her was no longer in operation, but it was still sad and the engine was also in sad shape. Years later, through a lot of research I learned the story of the railroad's bankruptcy. The story of the Black Hawk and Central City Railroad will be included in my upcoming book (The book has been a long time in coming, but the publisher and I are nearing layout stage and working through captions and cover options now).

Despite visiting Colorado many times since 1992, I never made it back to Central City until this past May when I finally got to see 71's (and combine 20's) home since the late 1990s which you can see below.

There is a move afoot to resurrect the old twice-abandoned route of a Central City tourist railroad. They made big progress this year as can be seen below. There are also more recent updates on the project's website here. I have heard little else since that August 2024 update, so it's hard to know the status.