Jo and I were the leaders of this History Trail run on Sept. 21. We only had three Jeeps, perhaps because the run easily could be made in a passenger car. I gave as much historical information to the pass as I could. Boreas Pass was used by the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad’s Highline to connect Leadville and Denver, beating the Denver & Rio Grande to the lucrative market during the Leadville boom.
At the Breckenridge end of the pass road was a static display of this rotary snow remover and its tender. It has a steam engine on board, but all it is used for is powering the rotary blades. It is pushed by steam engines in removing deep snow from the tracks.
Many of the Breckenridge ski runs are seen from the Boreas Pass road.
On the way up we paused at the Baker Tank, one of three tanks originally on the pass.
Section house and other buildings at the pass. The two larger buildings have been restored and are available for rent by skiers in the winter. The building at the rear is a comfort station.
This is the remains of the collapsed stone engine house which contained a water tub for the thirsty locomotives and a turntable in the building to turn the steam engines. (They performed better going nose first than in reverse, tender first.)
Looking down in the pit for the turntable. Turntables almost always are located outside of buildings, but it probably was built inside the engine house to make it easier to turn them in the deep snows found at this high pass (almost 11,500 ft. elevation).
View from the section house of the pass area, with the engine house ruins at the right of the boxcar.
Part way down on the south side of the pass the road deviates from the old railroad bed, and visitors are encouraged to walk out to Rocky Point on the old roadbed. A few panels of narrow gauge track have been re-laid on the path
From the Boreas Pass road one looks down the large valley named South Park,. The South Platte River heads in the valley.
Here the automobile road runs on top of the old railroad bed, with gentle curves and modest changes in elevation. The aspens were just beginning to be colorful.
More aspens are turning in the valley
At the south end of the pass is the burg of Como, consisting of a few homes, abandoned buildings, a hotel with a lunch room (where we ate lunch), the depot and the six bay stone part of the Roundhouse . In the heyday of the railroad wood additions were built on one end of the roundhouse, now long gone. The roundhouse slowly is being restored, with more work being done every time a grant can be found.
A turntable has been placed on the ground in the turntable pit.
Half of the existing bays are see here. Stabilization of the outside of the building and the roof has been completed. We were honored to have a tour of the roundhouse led by Bob Schoppe, the president of the Denver, South Park and Pacific Historical Society. It is undertaking the restoration of the Como depot. The current pride and joy of the Society is a boxcar delivered to the DSP&P about 1880. It is stored in the roundhouse awaiting restoration. A restoration survey has been completed so work wan begin when funds become available. The State Historical Fund receives money from gambling taxes which has funded many railroad projects.
We wrapped up the day by a visit to the South Park City museum in Fairplay. It consists of 40 historical buildings, some on their original foundations, depicting life in local towns about 1900. Included were a few homes, a dentist’s office, a doctor’s office, a general store, a pharmacy, mine, brewery, livery, church, rail yard, etc. It is very much worth a visit.
Jo could not resist playing fireman!
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