wn of Silver Plume. From station to station, it's only about a mile, but due to the loop and curves, it's 3.1 miles via the narrow gauge train. The railroad doubles back on itself in order to have a gradual rise in elevation. There was snow visible on the mountain tops. We went over a very tall iron bridge in the process. Even though we were in a covered railroad car, it was rather chilly and we regretted that we'd left our sweaters in the car.
There are two trains running between the stations, and each stops in the middle to pick off/drop off visitors to the restored Lebanon Silver Mine. We didn't op
t to take that tour, having seen a few other mines in our day (and being a little chilly). Here's the other train coming our way. Our conductor, Willie, got off to work the switches.The stop in Silver Plume offered a gift shop and a museum of older railroad cars. The one marked "sleeper" had wooden siding and a bunch of roll-away cots. Not my idea of comfort!
It was a really fun excursion. Afterwards, we went into Georgetown (population 1,000) for lunch at an Italian bistro and did a little shopping in some very nice gift shops.
Central City, where we stopped before going to Georgetown, is a cute town, too, having seen a boom during the gold rush when the population was 30,000. It now has a population of 450, but many of the restored historic buildings are populated by "one-armed bandits." Neighboring Black Hawk has more casinos, but the center piece of Central City is thankfully still the Opera House where I saw "Tosca" several years ago with my parents and Tante Willy.
love the photos. We have been in that area but it was quite some time ago, will need to put that on a to see list :) we didn't take the train but have gone through Georgetown and loved it - the historic aspect of the town is so neat and the buildings are so great. We stopped at a little bistro to eat too if I remember right - a neat place to visit.
ReplyDeleteKaren
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