Why Is There a Railroad Over the Continental Divide in Colorado That Nobody Is Allowed to Tear Up?

There is a railroad in Colorado that crosses the Continental Divide at more than ten thousand feet, and every rail of it is still in place. The ties are still down and the tunnel at the summit is still there. Nothing has moved over the top of it since a Saturday evening in August of 1997. The last train came through at twenty past six that evening. It was a westbound load of iron ore pellets from the mines of northern Minnesota, going to a steel mill in Utah. Ninety four cars, just over twelve thousand tons, a mile of train with extra locomotives cut in halfway down it to push. The engineer was a man called Francis Thompson and the conductor was Carl Bierman. When they came down the far side of the pass, that was it. Nobody took the rails up afterwards, and nobody has run a train over them since. IF YOU ARE GOING UP THERE As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Colorado Atlas and Gazetteer (DeLorme) - the old line runs through some of the emptiest country in the state, from the Royal Gorge up the Arkansas and over the Divide to the Eagle River, and every road that gets you near it is in here: https://amzn.to/4dlwd04 WHERE IT IS Tennessee Pass is on US 24 between Leadville and Minturn, in central Colorado. The railroad crosses the Divide beside the highway. The line still belongs to Union Pacific and is out of service, not abandoned. The track is private property and it is not open to the public. Stay off it. If you want to ride the same railroad legally, the Royal Gorge Route Railroad runs trains through the gorge from Canon City, over the hanging bridge that was built in 1879. Leadville is pronounced LED-vil. A NOTE ON THE IMAGES The research and the script are mine, from primary records and archives, and the sources are listed below. Where no photograph of a place survives, and for this channel that is often, the images are period material from elsewhere rather than the place itself. SOURCES Union Pacific in Utah, 1996 to Today, utahrails.net Trains Magazine, "Rio Grande Pacific reaches agreement with UP to lease Tennessee Pass line" Railfan and Railroad Magazine, "More Roadblocks for Tennessee Pass Revival", January 2021 The Colorado Sun, March 25, 2021 Chaffee County Times Ark Valley Voice, January 2021 Colorado Central Magazine, "The War for the Royal Gorge" The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, 2026 Royal Gorge Route Railroad, history of the Royal Gorge American-Rails.com, Tennessee Pass IF YOU WERE THERE If you worked Tennessee Pass for the Rio Grande or the Southern Pacific, or you have family who did, or you have been out on those rails yourself, I want to hear it. And if anybody took a photograph of that last ore train on the evening of the twenty third of August, 1997, I would very much like to know it still exists. Comment or write to [email protected]. Old Alignment. Abandoned American roads, railroads and infrastructure. New video every other day. #tennesseepass #abandonedrailroad #coloradohistory