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.
The Leadville, Colorado & Southern got a little spotlight on the news a few weeks ago. The news spot below tells a little bit of the story of how this last stretch of the South Park Line survived after the Burlington Northern called it quits in the 1980s.
I'm sad to say I haven't had a chance to re-ride this one since I was a teen. Hopefully, on another trip out to Colorado, my family and I can travel along the old Leadville to Climax route again.
This segment was originally the end of the line from Denver of the Denver, South Park & Pacific. Later it became the Denver, Leadville & Gunnison and finally the Colorado and Southern. After all of the remaining C&Sng was abandoned in 1941-1942, the Leadville to Climax stretch held out until it was standard gauged in 1943. The C&S (under the CB&Q and later the BN) operated it through 1981 when the C&S was absorbed into the Burlington Northern completely. The line closed down in 1986 and, as the video points out was purchased by the Olsen's for $10. It has operated ever since as the Leadville, Colorado & Southern.
Above: a photo from my early 1990s visit to the LC&S. C&S standard gauge 641 is on display next to the old C&S Leadville depot. 641 was the last regularly scheduled operating (standard gauge) steam engine on a Class 1 railroad when it gave up the ghost in 1962.
This is what the C&S freight house looked like in the early 1990s. It has since been turned into an event center.
