By Mike Rosso
Confession: I enjoy trains – a lot.
I’ve been aboard most of the tourist trains in Colorado, and was lucky enough to hear John McCutcheon sing City of New Orleans in the original Illinois Central club car, chugging down the west side of La Veta Pass one rainy summer afternoon. Sometimes I’ll even get nostalgic about the acrid coal smoke of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge R.R. I was forced to inhale when I owned a downtown business there. I’ve also awoken to coal cars rumbling through downtown Paonia in the middle of the night.