Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Drive Guide

This is not a themed tourist ride — it’s a working coal-fired steam railroad that has run the same 45-mile, three-foot-gauge track up the Animas River gorge since 1882, hauling passengers to the old silver camp of Silverton behind a genuine 1920s locomotive. The train claws up canyon walls the highway can’t reach, hanging over a 400-foot drop along the “high line” above the river where the rails were blasted into sheer rock, and the whole way you’re breathing coal smoke and cinders with the whistle echoing off the peaks. It’s 3.5 hours each way, climbing from Durango’s 6,500 feet to Silverton’s 9,300 with the fireman shoveling the whole time. The gorge stretch simply cannot be seen any other way.