Review by Virginia McConnell Simmons
Transportation – May 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Rio Grande’s La Veta Pass Route: Gateway to the San Luis Valley
By Stephen Rasmussen
Published in 2000 by Evergreen Press
ISBN 0-9667264-2-1
ALTHOUGH THIS VOLUME has been in print for a few years, recent plans for an excursion train will create a readership that is larger than the train buffs who usually collect books of this type. This big, attractive publication tells you everything you may not have known about the history of the railroad formerly called the Denver & Rio Grande Western in the region where it crosses the gaps between the Sangre de Cristo and Culebra Ranges in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Its original, narrow-gauge route can be seen in a few places along U.S. Highway 160, but a relocation in the 1890s moved standard-gauge trackage across privately owned land rarely seen by the public. With text and illustrations covering the railroad, its route, and much local history, this volume provides information for a wide variety of readers.
Rasmussen’s coverage includes considerably more than the route that he and the railroad call “La Veta Pass.” His interest extends across the San Luis Valley to Creede and south to Antonito, as well as the area around Walsenburg, but he has little to say about the narrow-gauge D&RG lines that ran west of Antonito to Durango; or north of Alamosa, across Poncha Pass, and down to South Arkansas to connect with Salida’s narrow-gauge operations.
Authors of books about railroading generally are avid in their pursuit of information and collectibles. With cooperation from the fraternity of railroad historians and local individuals, Rasmussen’s exceptional collection of photographs and others materials from private and public sources is printed here for everyone to enjoy. In addition, The Rio Grande’s La Veta Pass Route includes several original maps created by the author.
Readers may be confused about the place names used not only in this book but also by the railroad itself. Railroad companies habitually corrupted place names to suit themselves, and Rasmussen has faithfully perpetuated the resulting confusion about the names of La Veta Pass and Veta Pass, with no explanation for doing so. According to the D&RG, its subsequent owners, and Rasmussen, the pass that everyone else knows as La Veta Pass thus becomes “Veta Pass” in this book, and vice versa.
The original narrow-gauge D&RG crossed La Veta Pass, which is roughly a mile from what is today’s “North La Veta Pass” on U.S. Highway 160. The railroad, however, renamed La Veta Pass “Veta Pass,” probably to avoid confusion with its station at the new town of La Veta, Colorado.
In the 1890s, when the D&RG relocated its line about seven miles southward, to accommodate standard-gauge operation, the nonconformist railroad then chose to use “La Veta Pass” for the new route. In time, the railroad began to call the facilities at the summit “Fir.” The best authorities today, such as USGS maps, show this place as “Veta Pass.” Elsewhere, I have read that in early days it was known as “Wagon Creek Pass” and that John Gunnison examined it even earlier, in 1853, when he was examining possible routes for a central railroad across the West.
The engineering and scenery along the original narrow-gauge route with its 4 percent grades and Muleshoe Curve were dramatic, and the conversion of the line to standard gauge on a slightly lower pass involved intricacies of its own. Construction on the west side was held to no more than 2.5 percent grades with the help of a tight horseshoe curve, while the east side required a 3 percent grade in one section, plus the help of trestles and three tunnels. One of the original tunnels was eventually daylighted — meaning that it was opened up by removal of earth and rock. Rasmussen has described all of these feats in detail.
Excursionists on the San Luis Express across “La Veta Pass” will enjoy not only scenery but also some serious railroading when the line’s newest owner, Permian Railways, begins to operate a tourist train between the towns of Alamosa and La Veta this summer.
A smaller, less expensive publication, easier to carry on a train ride, will be a future mile-by-mile guide by Doris Osterwald, who has produced similar books for other excursion lines. Rasmussen’s The Rio Grande’s La Veta Pass Route will, however, remain a must, even at $50, for hardcore train buffs who treasure big tomes full of photographs, maps, tables, and data about railroading.