Cumbres Pass Archives - Colorado Central Magazine

The Way We Really Were

September 14, 2016April 14, 2016 by Mike Rosso

By Virginia McConnell Simmons April showers often brought more snow than May flowers for I-think-I-can narrow-gauge railroads. Winter blizzards and snow slides often upended estimated times of arrival, and in January 1884 a D&RG train was marooned for two weeks east of Cumbres Pass, while passengers cooked dwindling food and even washed clothes on the …

Marooned on Cumbres Pass

July 10, 2020June 10, 1920 by Mike Rosso

By Virginia McConnell Simmons Trains had first reached Durango in 1881, and the railroad was learning quickly that the difficulties of operating the San Juan Extension across the mountains between Alamosa and Durango happened so often that the word wreck was taboo. There were snow slides, rock slides, washouts and derailments, and winter weather was …