Omayra Acevedo, Peak to Peak. Remember the days of steam engines and traveling cross country by railroad? Good! I don’t remember either. I was born over 100 years after the first US railway charted its first commercial transport, passengers and freight. In case you didn’t know, it was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on February 28, 1827. Trains, or iron horses as they were more commonly known way back when, determined the success or downfall of a town. Can you imagine? If your town didn’t have a train station or at least train tracks running through it, well, you could pretty much kiss your existence goodbye. 

Luckily in Colorado, the lure of our rich mining traffic kept most of our colorful state alive and thriving. However, mountain railroading was an obstacle all its own. Through rain, sun, snow and wind, a crew had to travel on horseback through our rocky mountain terrain finding practical routes to build on or through. By 1853 the Colorado Rockies were deemed unusable for railroads. Aw shucks! No worries. Fast forward roughly 80 years and the completion of the Moffat Tunnel route was complete. Yay! 

Today, you can still venture through our mountains via train. Some rides take you from one town to another, others take you a short distance into a gold mine, and a few still serve practical purposes like helping you get to work. My first train ride in Colorado was at the Royal Gorge. I had camped two days prior to hopping aboard. It was an extremely short ride, but beautiful nonetheless. This is also when I discovered I had a small allergy to wasps after receiving my first bite (on my ear!). Ouch! My next experience on a Colorado train was at the Georgetown Loop Railroad where I also had my first experience mining for gold. 

While living in Europe, I loved traveling by train. Granted, their train systems are more advanced than I had anticipated, it still didn’t diminish the value of its romanticism. Romanticism? Yes. Like the sound of a turning page from a Jane Austen novel or freshly picked flowers. I’d get on at one train station in the middle of the city and disembark on another next to a cathedral that was almost a thousand years old. It was a photojournalist’s dream adventure. But, as most of you know, whether you’re traveling by bus, foot, bike, boat, air or iron horse, nothing compares to the majesty of our Colorado Rocky Mountains.

(Originally published in the July 30, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)