Silverton Railroad

The Silverton Railroad, now defunct, was an American narrow-gauge railroad constructed between Silverton, Colorado and mining districts near Red Mountain Pass, Colorado. Construction of the line, a project of famed Colorado railway-builder Otto Mears, began in 1887. The railroad struggled as the Red Mountain-area mines declined in the 1890s and beyond, and it was finally abandoned in 1926.

This was the first railroad project by Otto Mears. Construction began in Silverton in 1887, following a survey made by the D&RG, up Mineral Creek and climbed Red Mountain Pass to reach the incredibly rich mining around Red Mountain Town. The line then descended to Ironton and a spur to a mill at Albany in Ironton Park. In 1889, surveying and grading was begun on a branch up the upper Animas River to Eureka. This project became the beginning on the Silverton Northern Railroad.

A line was proposed to connect Ironton with Ouray in 1892 which would have been electric-powered and using a rack-and-pinion system to overcome the steep grades of 7%. However, the Silver Crash of 1893 prevented further construction. The railroad struggled through market and weather difficulties, to be dismantled in 1926.

References

*cite book|last=Sloan|first=Robert E and Skowronski, Carl A.|title=The Rainbow Route|year=1975|location=Denver, Colorado|publisher=Sundance Publications Ltd.|id=ISBN 0-913582-12-3
*cite book|last=Hilton|first=George W.|title=American Narrow Gauge Railroads|year=1990|location=Stanford, California|publisher=Stanford University Press|id=ISBN 0-8047-1731-1