All aboard!
The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad headed north Saturday.
Next stop: Silverton, marking the beginning of the summer train schedule and onset of the tourism season in the region.
As shop owners and recreational guides depend on tourism dollars, our neighbors to the north, a town of about 600, take a hard hit when things such as weather or transportation issues cut off the influx of visitors.
Complications on Red Mountain Pass have had profound affect on the town recently, and big crowds for events such as the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic can make or break a season, so when something disrupts plans for a busy weekend, things can look grim right out of the gate.
That’s why the first train that rolls into town is met with a breath of fresh air. DeAnne Gallegos, the executive director of the Silverton Area Chamber of Commerce, said the energy soars.
“The locals come out, your summer friends come back, everything a-hustle-and-bustle” she said.
Under a blend of passing drizzle, warming sun and alpine shadows, the train brought the historic community out of its winter hibernation. Gallegos said folks even had to stop for traffic in town.
“That’s unheard of around here in the winter,” she said. “The train just adds a whole other element to this town – the sounds, the smell, the feel.”
And this train is set to bring yet another element. Al Harper, the man with the steam that runs the railroad, is on a mission to preserve history.
“My parents would plan vacations around history,” Harper said over the phone from his General Palmer railcar while en route to Silverton in the first train of the new season. “One summer, we did the Civil War, another the American Revolution. You’ve got to know your past – the good and the bad – because history is the road map to the future.”
Harper’s purchase of Silverton’s Grand Imperial Hotel is part of a plan he hopes will put between 60 and 80 people in Silverton each night all summer long, with ride-and-stay packages.
Tom Wisp owns Professor Shutterbugs: Old Tyme Portrait Studio in Silverton, and his wife owns the Blair Street Emporium. He said he feels positive about the upcoming season, and Harper and his train gang are a part of that.
“Now they have a vested interest in Silverton,” he said. “It’s in both of our interests to work together, and if we all work together, maybe we can all be successful every year forward.”
Gallegos said much of Silverton is on board with Harper’s vision.
“It’s something Silverton has always wished for,” she said. “That old building is about to get a lot of love and attention. That’s what you want to see around here. It’s given a lot of people motivation.”
The train, which has run non-stop since 1882, the same year the Grand Imperial opened its doors, will run once a day until May 17, then twice a day until June 8, then three times each day through Aug. 6.
