Rollins Pass

[brown_dog_us]

If you want to see the pass, tunnel, and old trestles, it's easiest to access it from the Winter Park side. You can drive within a mile and it's pretty flat from the parking lot to the pass. I've never driven up from that side, but I have seen 2wd sedans in the parking lot, so it can't be too rugged. Obviously, go when it is dry.

[KaaBoom]

It’s really too bad that can’t be restored as a rail line. Can you imagine the tourist potential for that?

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by KaaBoom

It’s really too bad that can’t be restored as a rail line. Can you imagine the tourist potential for that?

The potential exists for Colorado to be the Switzerland of the USA if only the political will could be found to fund a rail system the way we found the will to fund the interstate highway system. TABOR dooms Colorado to mediocrity and Grover Norquist dooms America to the eventual dustbin of history.

[KaaBoom]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

The potential exists for Colorado to be the Switzerland of the USA if only the political will could be found to fund a rail system the way we found the will to fund the interstate highway system. TABOR dooms Colorado to mediocrity and Grover Norquist dooms America to the eventual dustbin of history.

Well, that too, I agree. But I was thinking a little more narrowly. Can you imagine antique steam engine trains pulling out of Union Station and taking tourists on the old rail grade over the top of Rollins Pass to Winter Park? The California Zephyr is already considered one of the most scenic train rides in America. Putting trains back on Rollins Pass would take it to a whole new level. It would make the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad look like nothing.

I don’t think it would do much for transportation in Colorado (the line would be too slow). But it would be one hell of a tourist attraction.

[whoisjongalt]

I think that's a great idea. A hundred years ago you could take a day trip up there to a place called Corona. There was even a hotel at the top with walls that were anchored by steel cables so that the building wouldn't blow away. Pretty good article:

Rollins Pass 4x4 Trail - Colorado - Off-Road Magazine

[2nd trick op]

There are a couple of excellent books on the original "Moffat Road" -- the Denver and Salt Lake railroad -- Harold Boner's The Giant's Ladder and Edward Bollinger's Rails that Climb. Both date from the 1960's and both are generally oriented toward railroad buffs, but Boner's work has a lot more on the life and personality of founder David H. Moffat (and a lot more photos), while Bollinger's deals more with the daily operating conditions the struggling railroad faced.

Essentially, "the Moffat" survived only because once it was in place, there were no alternatives during its time; the completion of the Moffat Tunnel ensured its survival and placed Denver directly upon a transcontinental rail route, but the coming of all-weather, and later, Interstate highways spelled finis to that portion of the line to Craig -- west of the Yampa valley coal fields.

I strongly doubt that the line could be revived as a tourist attraction -- too isolated, and too great a cost to reconstruct.

[dude_reino]

We have a better chance of seeing the Moffat tunnel expanded to include auto lanes than we do of ever seeing Rollins Pass open completely from Rollinsville to Winter Park.