| OCR Text |
Show Narrow Gauge Railroad Sets 1969 Record The narrow-gauge Silver-ton Silver-ton train, livclyrelic of th? 1880's, carried 97,010 passengers passen-gers during the season just ended, according to Frank E. Long, passenger traffic manager man-ager of the Rio Grande railroad. rail-road. This was a new all-time record and a gain of 6,286 over the previous record established in the 1968 season, sea-son, Long said. Often referred to as "the train that goes nowhere and takes all day to get there," tlhe steam-powered fugitive from the Victorian era made a daily 90-mile round trip between Durango and Silver- ton, high in the San Juan mountains of southwestern Colorado, from June 1 through October 5, 1969. During the busiest part of the tourist season1 from June 18 through August 31 two sections were operated each day over the spectacular spectac-ular roadbed completed in 1882. Total passenger count for the month of August, a one-month one-month record, was 31,565 an average of more than 1,000 a day. A new one-day record was set on Tuesday, August 12, with 1,123 passengersthen passen-gersthen promptly broken the following days when 1,127 pesons somehow got aboard for the unsurpassed "journey to yesterday." The 1970 season will extend from Saturday, May 30, through Sunday, October 4, Long announced. |
