{"id":52155,"date":"2020-08-14T19:41:17","date_gmt":"2020-08-15T01:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-train-extends-service-to-cascade-cancels-chance-of-trips-to-silverton\/"},"modified":"2020-08-15T01:41:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T01:41:17","slug":"durango-train-extends-service-to-cascade-cancels-chance-of-trips-to-silverton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-train-extends-service-to-cascade-cancels-chance-of-trips-to-silverton\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango train extends service to Cascade, cancels chance of trips to Silverton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad said it will look to 2021 to resume full service to Silverton.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad on Friday ruled out the possibility of making it to Silverton this year, but announced it will continue its limited trips to the Cascade station for the remainder of the 2020 season.<\/p>\n

The D&SNG is offering a minimum of five steam and diesel-powered locomotive excursions from the Rockwood station, about 18 miles north of Durango, to the Cascade station, about a two-hour round-trip ride.<\/p>\n

Trains will run from Tuesday to Saturday as long as conditions allow, D&SNG officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to Cascade for the rest of the year,\u201d said John Harper, general manager of American Heritage Railways, which owns the D&SNG.<\/p>\n

The D&SNG cited a number of complications that keep locomotives from running the full 50-mile trek <\/a>to Silverton.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic first shut down the D&SNG earlier this year. When regulations were relaxed, state public health orders said the railroad could operate at 50% capacity, but D&SNG officials said running the full Durango-to-Silverton trip with half the passengers would be financially unfeasible.<\/p>\n

\"Rains
Rains brought down a significant amount of debris, causing a log jam at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad&#x2019;s bridge at Elk Creek.<\/span>Courtesy of Criss Furman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The situation worsened in June when a massive rainstorm washed out the D&SNG\u2019s bridge at Elk Creek, about 5 miles south of Silverton, effectively cutting off train service to the mountain town.<\/p>\n

D&SNG officials had estimated it could take eight to 16 weeks to repair. But the U.S. Forest Service on July 2 ordered the railroad to stop any repair work, saying plans needed to first be approved by the agency.<\/p>\n

The Forest Service on July 27 said the D&SNG could resume repairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t sure what we were doing,\u201d Harper said. \u201cOnce we cleared any misinformation they had, they had a better idea as far as the scope of work \u2026 and felt more comfortable with the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there is no telling when the 40 feet or so of track will be fixed. Harper said an engineer has visited the site. Harper did not immediately know the timeline for fixing the track.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s one more issue at hand: The Forest Service stopped an extensive fire mitigation project that sought to clear any vegetation or trees that may start a fire on the 100-foot right of way on each side of the railroad\u2019s track.<\/p>\n

The D&SNG and Forest Service have yet to resolve the matter, Harper said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s no mitigation on the tracks, then there\u2019s liability because the potential for a (fire) start is higher,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Forest Service did not immediately return a request seeking comment Friday morning.<\/p>\n

The D&SNG said in a statement Friday it will continue efforts to resume service to Silverton in 2021.<\/p>\n

DeAnne Gallegos, director of the Silverton Area Chamber of Commerce, said \u201calthough this will be the first time in our history that the D&SNG did not come to Silverton during the summer season, our community is experiencing a very busy summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis experiment without the train this summer has been interesting for our business owners, and some time adjustments to their operating hours have been noticed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Usually during the summer, the D&SNG provides an injection of tourists for a few hours during the afternoon, who grab a bite to eat and peruse gift shops before they head back to Durango.<\/p>\n

Now, Gallegos said it is busier in the mornings and evenings.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur sales tax revenue is down but not at the loss we had anticipated,\u201d she said. \u201cSome business owners are already up for August compared to last year while others are pleasantly surprised at their sales being barely down from last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have proved that Silverton is a destination all on its own,\u201d Gallegos said.<\/p>\n

The D&SNG also canceled fall events like the Brew & Wine trains and the Great Pumpkin Patch Train.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, we are working hard to plan what the Polar Express and winter trains will look like,\u201d said Kevin Martin, head of marketing and sales for American Heritage Railways.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Railroad officials hope to make full run in 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,170,28,29,199,327,549],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-durango-and-silverton-narrow-gauge-railroad-co","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-san-juan-national-forest","tag-silverton","tag-united-states-forest-service"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52155"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}