In June, my family and I took a ride on the Cripple Creek and Victor Railroad, and I thought I'd post some pictures. This is a two-foot gauge tourist train that has been active since the 19650s. It runs from the center of Cripple Creek to the ghost town of Anaconda. This used to be a standard gauge line, but was converted to two foot by the current owners. Since I'm a narrow gauge freak, this was a really interesting and pleasant ride. We rode on Engine #1, which is a 1902 0-4-4-0 mallet produced by a German maker (Orenstein and Koppel). Engine #2 was also operating on the day we visited; it's a pre-war German Henschel 0-4-0T. Engine #3 (A 1926 0-4-0 Porter) was not operating on the day we visited.
The Cripple Creek and Victor Railroad's website is at: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cripplecreekrailroad.com/">http://www.cripplecreekrailroad.com/</a><!-- m -->. They have some nice pictures and a link to a 1995 article about the railroad (at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cripplecreekrailroad.com/buffs.htm">http://www.cripplecreekrailroad.com/buffs.htm</a><!-- m -->)
Following pages are just pictures of our trip...
These are some scenes of the Anaconda ghost town, most of which was destroyed by fire. In the first and second, you can see some remains of cabins and a big mill; in the third is the biggest surviving structure, which housed a blacksmith facility. The large earthworks in the background are the tailings from a massive cyanide processing mine located on the top of the mountain.
[
attachment=2198][
attachment=2197][
attachment=2196]
Looks like a fun time. Nice pics also.
Thanks for taking us along for the ride!
Ralph
It's a fun little trip, but a lot of revenue was lost by not completing the journey to Victor.
I'm a big fan of the Cripple Creek short lines: The Florence & Cripple Creek (3'), The Midland Terminal (SG), and the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District (SG, steam & electric).
There were actually a few depots in Cripple Creek. The tourist line uses the Midland Terminal's ROW (The Midland Terminal was a separate entity from the famed Colorado Midland...until the MT took over the eastern end for the CM after the CM died). The CS&CCD depot was at the corner of Warren and 4th streets. If you draw a line from the MT depot to the CS&CCD, the F&CC depot would be on that same line, twice as far as from the MT as the CS&CCD. The entire district looked like a spaghetti bowl style model railroad. I'd rank the railroads: F&CC > CS&CCD > MT. Maybe some day, again, one of the surviving F&CC engines will once more wear F&CC paint (four locomotives survive, 1 runs, 1 is being restored)
Thanks for posting the photos, Joe!
There was also an electric trolley line, as well. 8-)
MountainMan Wrote:There was also an electric trolley line, as well. 8-)
Mountain Man is referring to the CS&CCD's interurban services in the region. All of the cars were built by Barney & Smith. There were 8 motors...7 were passenger and the eighth was work. The CS&CCD started out as an interurban line before the steam railroad was built...which was furnished exclusively with Barney & Smith passenger cars, AC&F freight cars (aside from ingoldsby dump cars and a Bucyrus steam shovel), and Schenectady locomotives. In other words, it was built using the premium equipment of the day.
The competition for the CS&CCD interurbans were furnished by the F&CC's sister company, the Golden Circle which operated a 4-6-0 identical to RGS #20 and a forney.
