A Day On The Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad| A Day On The Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad |
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| Written by Dennis Murphy | |||
| Sunday, 04 July 2010 06:06 | |||
 Once upon a time, in a land far far away… Well, this story COULD start like that! Let me explain. Have you ever wanted to chase your dreams and throw “caution to the wind”… And just go traveling around the world riding trains and having the time of your life? It could happen…I am a guy who is in the middle of some major changes in my life. Not exactly a “mid-life crises”, but certainly a time of change. I have lived in the “Wilds of Alaska” for over 30 years and with the help of my wonderful wife have decided to move to a bit more “civilized” life style. Namely, the Pacific Northwest coast of the mainland of America! Technically, Alaska is part of the US, but we do not think of our selves that way. We are talking about a change of over 6000 kilometers driving distance. I needed to get my “Ute and Caravan” (Better known as a pick-up truck and travel trailer here in the US) down to the new house in Washington State. So I thought I might as well have a little adventure along the way. The last few years I have been working seasonally for tourist railroads, and decided to see if I could find a job some place along my way “South”. As it turned out, I found a locomotive engineer job in a place called Leadville, Colorado. Leadville is a small town of about 2000 people at an altitude of 10,200 feet, high up in the Rocky Mountains. Not much air to breath at that altitude, but Leadville is situated almost exactly in the center of the “Mecca” of tourist railroads. There are eight major tourist railroads (And a few smaller ones) within a three or four hour drive in different directions. What better place to spend a summer?  To set the stage for a summer of adventure, I needed a goal to achieve. It needed to be a bit of a challenge, but still obtainable. Why not take a ride on ALL of the tourist railroads in the area in one summer. And possibly even work for more than one of them? After all, I already work at one of the eight!I decided to start off “small.” Now… When I say “small”, I really mean small! My first trip was to a railroad called the Cripple Creek and Victor. I set out on a crisp clear day when there was still some snow on the ground. The Cripple Creek is situated about 2 ½ hours drive southeast from Leadville. A little background on track might be in order at this time. A standard gauge railroad is considered something with rail distance somewhere around 4 foot 8 ½ inches apart. Some are even at 5 feet apart. Narrow gauge is anything less than that. Usually what is considered a narrow gauge is 3 feet, but not always. Over the years of railroading, there have been many different experiments with rail. The Cripple Creek and Victor Railroad is a 2-foot narrow gauge line. After working with the standard gauge equipment in Leadville, this 2-foot equipment was TINY! The advantage of smaller and narrower rail is it costs much less to build and can make much tighter turns. The down side is it can’t carry nearly as much stuff or people. What good fun! A lot of these 2-foot lines were used in and around mining operations.  Cripple Creek is a historic town built during the gold and silver rush of the 1890’s. Today, most of the larger buildings have been converted into casinos and hotels for the tourists. And boy do the tourists come to gamble!Just by chance, on the day I came for a ride on the train the town was having a Chili Cook-Off. There were at least 40 vendors on the street trying to get me to try their chili. All I can say is… Yum!! Anyway… I finally made it to the railroad depot and introduced myself. It always helps to let the folks know you work in the industry, as they answer your questions more like you might actually know something. I had some time to kill before our trip and was fortunate enough to get to know the train crew. The story on these locomotives is they came from a large mine in central Mexico. They were mostly built in the 1930’s and were in daily service until the early 1970’s. These little beauties were rescued in the early 1990’s and put to good use in Cripple Creek. Keep in mind that these are real working locomotives, not “toys”. But looking at them, they certainly could be mistaken for toys. They have a minimum of controls with only one steam pressure gauge and one water level sight gauge. There are no electric or compressed air systems on the locomotives. The brakes are operated with steam from the boiler. The cars have no brakes at all, but rather rely on the brakes of the locomotive. The couplers are “link and pin” rather than knuckle. These are the most basic locomotives and cars I have ever come across. No “frills” or extras on these units! To keep the boiler up to steam, about every 5 to 10 minutes one small shovel of coal does the trick. And they always have a large hammer handy, as the coal needs to be really small to fit in the firebox. You can fit two people in the cab of the locomotive, but you had best be good friends. The railroad takes great pride in their equipment. The two regular locomotives are gaily painted and the cars were clean and neat. The railroad also has a wonderful articulated steam locomotive that they bring out from time to time. The passenger cars were made on-site and were built for this single purpose. The cars have long bench seating with no pads to sit on. That doesn’t really matter, as the trip isn’t long enough to notice how hard the seats are. I did decide if I have a chance to go for another ride with these folks, I would bring something soft to sit on. (I’m a real “softie” you see.) The trip including boarding and intro talk takes less than 1 ½ hour, so there are no bathrooms on the train. (Best to go before you depart) This train takes you around the historic town of Cripple Creek and out into the mining district. At one point you cross over a rock “fill” that is said to contain more than a million dollars of GOLD! At this point in time, it would cost more to refine the gold than it’s worth. So the fill just sits there and makes a great story. What I really enjoyed about this trip was all the mining history in the area. There were “booms” and “busts” all over the region, but here in Cripple Creek you can see many of the mine-heads and other buildings from the early days. In other areas, most of these relics of those long gone times have been lost forever. All things considered, this was a wonderful way to start off my “summer of adventure”. The day provided a fun cross-country drive and a great train ride. There will be other fun stories about other fun trips to other fun railroads as the summer progresses. But starting off “small” was the exact correct thing to do. And now, the big question is… Which of the other railroads will be the next one I take a ride on? Hummmm… So many choices! Check in the next issue to find out where I went next…
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