Cumbres and Toltec Railroad Eastern Terminus, Colorado

America's longest and highest narrow gauge steam railroad, runs between Chama, New Mexico, and Antonito, Colorado, a distance of 64 miles through mountainous terrain, with elevations as high as 10,015 feet at Cumbres Pass, Colorado. Built in 1880 with the three-foot-wide rail gauge that was common, but not standard for the time, the railroad was intended to serve the silver mines of the San Juan Mountains. With the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, and the subsequent decrease in the value of silver, the railway serving the mining communities became less critical. When the national rail system converted to the four-foot, eight-and-a-half inch standard, still in use today, it was determined that this stretch of rail was not important enough to be converted, leaving it incompatible with the nationwide rail network, and preserving it as a relic of the narrow gauge era. In the 1970s, preservationists, state officials, and local investors restored the railway, and it continues to draw tourists when it runs, from late May to mid October, after and before the snows.