A Ride on the Cripple Creek and Victor Railroad

[Joes Lines]

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...

[Joes Lines]

Motive Power

   

   

   

[Joes Lines]

Facilities.
The station is the original Cripple Creek depot and currently houses a local history museum

   

   

   

[Joes Lines]

Sights along the way, including abandoned miner's cabin, a deep cut in the rock, and a long view of the continental divide.

   

   

   

[Joes Lines]

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.

           

[eightyeightfan1]

Looks like a fun time. Nice pics also.

[Ralph]

Thanks for taking us along for the ride!
Ralph

[nachoman]

Ain't narrow gauge fun?

[MountainMan]

It's a fun little trip, but a lot of revenue was lost by not completing the journey to Victor.

[nkp_174]

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!

[MountainMan]

There was also an electric trolley line, as well. 8-)

[nkp_174]

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.