A trip on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad is an excursion down the tracks of frontier mining history. Travel by steam train through cliffside canyons and along the rushing Animas River deep into the heart of the San Juan mountains. This narrow gauge railroad has been operating for over 100 years, and cars once filled with gold and silver ore now carry passengers on the ride of their life.
The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad was originally built by General William Jackson Palmer, a Civil War veteran who envisioned a railroad network from Denver south toward Mexico City along and into the front range of the Rockies. His plan for a "narrow" 3 foot wide track configuration (standard gauge is 4'8.5" wide) was conducive to inaccessible canyons and the rugged mining terrain of the mountains. Palmer eventually completed a network from Denver that arrived in Durango in 1881 and the Silverton portion was completed by 1882. Equally ambitious was the transportation entrepreneur and magnate Otto Mears, who extended the narrow gauge network with 3 lines out of Silverton as well as constructing the famous toll road known as the million dollar highway linking Silverton to Ouray over Red Mountain Pass. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad provides visitors a wonderful first-hand exposure to the rich mining history of the San Juans and broader American Southwest
A trip on the 
from Denver that arrived in Durango in 1881 and the Silverton portion was completed by 1882. Equally ambitious was the transportation entrepreneur and magnate Otto Mears, who extended the narrow gauge network with 3 lines out of Silverton as well as
