Sidebar by Bill Murphy
Transportation – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
My first visit to Salida was by rail in the summer of 1959. I came here to check out a radio station that was for sale. I rode the Burlington from Chicago to Denver, then the Rio Grande from Denver to Salida. You didn’t get off that train; there was some switching when you might have to move from a sleeper car to a coach, but you never stepped off the train.
After buying the radio station, KVRH, and moving to Salida in 1959 with my family — wife Mary Ellen and two daughters — we endured other experiences with rail travel.
While passenger service was still available to and from Denver, I remember mostly how long it took, at least eight hours including a lengthly lunch stop in Pueblo. This was in the 1960s when it seems all the railroads did everything possible to discourage passenger travel so they could discontinue the routes. We even pulled over on a siding so freight trains could pass us.
Once when we were driving back from Denver through Colorado Springs in a snowstorm, my wife refused to drive with me up the canyon. She insisted I drop her off at the Cañon City railroad station so she could take the train home. Consequently, I was able to enjoy the snowy drive without non-stop driving instructions.
As I recall, in the 1960s when the Rio Grande petitioned the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for permission to suspend passenger service, one of the most vigorous opponents was mortician Joe Stewart, along with railroad retirees and many others.
Joe argued that he needed the Railway Express Agency service on passenger trains to ship coffins to Salida from the factory in Indiana, and also to ship remains in and out of town.
When the final scheduled passenger train from Denver to Grand Junction on the Royal Gorge route passed through Salida in late 1964, I boarded for the short ride to Buena Vista. The train was crowded with public officials, railroad buffs, and media types like myself. A hearty party atmosphere prevailed.
The last passenger train through Salida was a special excursion by the Union Pacific in 1997, a long train under steam power. Hundreds, maybe thousands, gathered along the tracks up through the canyon. Many congregated in downtown Salida to mingle with the crew and passengers and to inspect the vintage locomotive. Salida was a water stop for this special.
Our last rail trip in Colorado was in the fall of 1967 to an Intermountain Radio Network meeting in Salt Lake City. Mary Ellen and I drove to Glenwood Springs, spent the night at the historic Hotel Denver next to the railroad station, and boarded the train the next day. The book I read on the train: To Hell in a Day Coach: An Exasperated Look at American Railroads, by Peter Lyon.
