The Rio Grande Scenic Railroad, A New Excursion Keeping Alive The Memory Of The Fabled Rio Grande!The Rio Grande Scenic Railroad is a new tourist railroad based in Alamosa, Colorado that has been operating only since 2006. The railroad operates exclusively over ex-Rio Grande trackage (as you may have guessed from the name) and connects with the popular narrow-gauge tourist line, Cumbres & Toltec Scenic at its southern terminus of Chama, New Mexico.
The Rio Grande Scenic Railroad has become a very popular tourist line in just the few years since it was started, not to mention the fact that the area in which it operates is already home to other very popular tourist railroads, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic and the Durango & Silverton. Today, the railroad operates three different routes connecting La Veta, Colorado; Monte Vista, Colorado; and Chama, New Mexico with Alamosa, Colorado. These three lines include the San Luis Express which operates between Alamosa and La Veta on a two-hour trip; the Toltec Gorge Limited, which operates between Alamosa and Antonito on a complete round-trip between the two towns; and finally the Mote Vista Mixed which travels between Alamosa and Monte Vista, with a one-hour layover in Monte Vista.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, also known as simply the Rio Grande, is one our country’s most famous railroads. Its speed-lettering herald is likewise one of the most recognized of all time and people continue to flock to its scenic routes to travel trains such as the California Zephyr, now operated by Amtrak, and the Durango & Silverton, perhaps the most famous tourist line in the country which operates several miles of the D&RGW’s former narrow-gauge trackage in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. While the railroad officially became a fallen flag in 1996 when the Union Pacific took over the Southern Pacific the railroad’s identity had mostly disappeared before that when its parent company Rio Grande Industries purchased the SP in 1988 and began consolidating D&RGW operations into the much larger railroad. The Rio Grande has an interesting if somewhat complicated history. Like many of the now-famous fallen flag railroads, it was created through mergers and acquisitions of smaller railroads. Its predecessors’ primary purpose for being built was to conquer the Rocky Mountain range and link Denver with Salt Lake City, Utah. This would come later, however, as the new and prospering town of Denver chartered the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in 1870 to build south, wanting the railroad to reach El Paso, Texas and eventually Mexico but after it came under the control of Jay Gould in 1880 it took on a new direction and would only make it as far south as Santa Fe, New Mexico. Besides the railroad’s famed narrow-gauge lines two other future ventures would earn the railroad legendary status. At the Continental Divide northwest of Denver, the Rio Grande completed its famous Moffat Tunnel in 1928, some 6.1-miles in length and in doing so bypassed the torturous Rollins Pass, over 11,000 feet in height! The new tunnel cut down transit times over that section of main line from several hours to mere minutes and further strengthened the line’s demand as a high-speed connection over the Rockies.
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