Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad

As Ted, Kenidee, and I hiked across the desert south of the Bookcliffs, we heard the whistle of a locomotive, two longs, one short, and one long blast, signaling the train was approaching an intersection.
The sound sent shivers through me. I couldn’t help wondering if a train whistle sounded like that in 1883.
We were walking along an old railroad bed Ted had spotted from Interstate 70.
Along that same route, beginning in 1883, the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) had shuttled passengers on its narrow-gauge tracks.
Now nothing remained except the raised bed, collapsed bridges, and railroad spikes, some of which had dissolved into hundreds of rusty fragments.
The task of building the bed, laying tracks, and constructing bridges staggered us.
Without heavy equipment, the workers relied on wagons, horses, and human-power. Most of the laborers came from the Salt Lake area or Colorado.
The history of the Denver & Rio Grande and its subsidiary, Denver & Rio Grande Western, is complicated, even convoluted, but the idea for the railroads originated in the mind of a Quaker from Delaware.
General William Jackson Palmer, born in 1836, worked as a clerk on the Hempfield Railroad when he was 15. At 17, he held the survey rod for the Hempfield survey crews, and at 18 worked as a transitman, surveying the land for rail expansion.
He later traveled to England to investigate the possibility of using coal instead of wood to fuel steam engines and, finding it feasible, eventually initiated coal-powered engines.
Despite being a pacifist, when the Civil War struck, he joined the Union Army because of his strong Abolitionist beliefs.
While acting as a spy in an attempt to trace General Robert E. Lee’s location, the Confederate Army captured him, and he was imprisoned for four months until finally exchanged for a prominent Confederate prisoner.
Upon his release, he took over the command of his calvary unit and turned the demoralized men into a fine fighting force.
Because of that, President Lincoln recommended he be promoted to the rank of a brevet brigadier general, and the Senate confirmed the appointment.
Throughout the war, he remained passionate about defeating the Confederate forces, and in 1865 led his 200-men calvary unit into battle against a large enemy battalion, defeated them, and took 100 prisoners.
No one in his unit died. Later, he received a Medal of Honor for his heroism.
After the war, he helped fund education for the freed slaves and continued to work on railroads with the same courage and determination he displayed during combat.
In 1870 he and his partner, Dr. William Bell, constructed the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad south of Denver, opting to build a three-foot narrow-gauge line because construction was cheaper and because of the train’s ability to navigate mountains and sharp turns with ease.
Palmer and Bell extended their system through the Royal Gorge, but not without a fight with the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe company (AT&SF). Railroad construction in those days was volatile and sometimes violent.
The “war” began in 1877 and lasted through 1880. Both companies hired gunfighters and used funds to influence politicians.
Finally, court intervention ended the conflict in D&RG’s favor with the railroad paying $1.4 million for the right-of-way through the gorge.
As the partners continued to expand their system through Colorado and down into New Mexico, Palmer founded Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Salida, Alamosa, and Durango.
By the early 1880’s, D&RGW began construction in Utah, starting in Ogden, traveling through Salt Lake City, over Soldier’s Summit, and into Grand Junction.
By the mid-1880s, the company had 2,783 miles of track through Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, the largest narrow-gauge system in the country.
Perhaps because of the aggressive expansion, the mother line eventually faced bankruptcy, and the board forced Palmer to step down though he retained control of the D&RGW Railroad, at least temporarily.
Some of those original narrow-gauge tracks remain in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico as heritage railways.
Ted and I have ridden on the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad; the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, in operation since 1881; the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad; and the Royal Gorge Route Railroad.
The Heber Valley Historic Railroad is also still in operation.
However, railway workers tore apart the line we were investigating after about ten years of service and replaced it with a standard-gauge system which took a slightly different route across the desert.
They used the steel rails in constructing the new line, and nearby settlers and ranchers confiscated the ties for corrals and cabins.
As Ted, Kenidee, and I hiked along the old bed, a fierce wind blew across the desert, a seemingly barren landscape, but the more we walked, the more evident it became that the land teemed with life.
Prairie dog holes riddled the old bed, antelope grazed on sparse grass or bounded away and then turned to gaze at us curiously, and flowers bloomed from the crusty earth.
The desert landscape hasn’t changed much in the last 142 years. Did a dandy, a classy lady, or a family of five once ride these rails, watching out the window for antelope, or did they lounge in comfort, peruse an exciting Zane Grey book, or nap?
We’ll never know, but as we paused for a moment, we could hear the locomotive whistle and almost believed we’d been transported back to a time when steam engines chugged across the land.