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About Historic Rail Adventures, LLC
Historic narrow-gauge train + silver mine tours 45mi west of Denver; partnership of Historic Rail Adventures and History Colorado.
📍 GEORGETOWN, CO 80444
History
Historic Rail Adventures LLC is the operator of Colorado's Georgetown Loop Railroad, a three-foot narrow gauge line completed in 1884 by the Georgetown, Breckenridge and Leadville Railway, a company formed in 1881 under the Union Pacific. Regarded as an engineering marvel, the corkscrew route linked the mining towns of Georgetown and Silver Plume — two miles apart in Clear Creek's steep canyon — via horseshoe curves, grades up to 4 percent, and four bridges including the Devil's Gate High Bridge, and it hauled silver ore through the 1880s boom. The Colorado and Southern ran it from 1893 until 1938, and the track was pulled up in 1939. Restoration along the old grade began in 1973 with rail donated by Union Pacific, a new high bridge was built to the original specifications, and the rebuilt segment opened on March 10, 1984. After a troubled management era in the 2000s, the Colorado Historical Society awarded operations in 2009 to a local Georgetown businessman's new company, Historic Rail Adventures, which has run the Loop since, restoring reliability and ridership.
The Trains
The Georgetown Loop carries passengers behind historic three-foot narrow gauge steam locomotives, and under Historic Rail Adventures three operational steam engines returned to the roster after a period when the railroad lacked working steam power. One celebrated veteran, Colorado and Southern Railway No. 9, was restored to operation in 2006 but was damaged by the previous operator's overloading and returned to static display. Trains run between depots at Silver Plume and Devil's Gate, climbing roughly 640 feet over trestles and the famous loop, with an optional walking tour 500 feet into the 1870s Lebanon Silver Mine tunnel at the route's halfway point.
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