Brief by Central Staff
Transportation – April 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
If all goes according to plan, steam will return to the Royal Gorge in 2005 when the Cañon City & Royal Gorge Railroad puts No. 19 back into service.
The 2-8-0 locomotive began its career on the Lake Superior & Ishpeming Railroad, hauling taconite (a kind of iron ore) on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In 1989, it was acquired by the Grand Canyon Railroad in Arizona; its sister, No. 20, remains in use there, hauling passenger excursions from Williams to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.
No. 19 got some cosmetic work after it moved to Las Vegas about a decade ago, where it was part of a theme park at the MGM Grand Casino before it was sold earlier this year to the CC&RG.
It is “in pretty good shape, but will still require quite a bit of work,” according to CC&RG President Mark Greksa. He’s waiting on MGM to dismantle the theme park before moving the locomotive to Cañon City. Once it’s working and passes government inspections, “We would run it on selected dates throughout the year.”
In other Royal Gorge Route developments, the railroad has acquired a dining car (the “Theodore Roosevelt”), and will run dinner trains on Saturday evenings from June 28 through Aug. 2.
Some rumors have been circulating that the CC&RG might make arrangements with the Union Pacific to run excursions clear up to Salida, but Greksa said that’s not in the works at this time, although it could happen someday. “It would be awesome to run all the way to Salida, but right now we have enough on our plate to keep us busy.”