Gruber-SC-01-16-01

Gruber-SC-01-16-01

Denver & Rio Grande Railroad steam locomotive with passenger cars rounding Phantom Curve on the San Juan Division, near Toltec Gorge, Colorado, late 19th century. The train follows a winding track along steep mountainsides, with towering rock formations and dense forests.Transcription of reverse side:Toltec Gorge and Vicinity.The San Juan Division of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, traversing the mountains from Antonito to Durango, a distance of 171 miles, crossing the Pinos-Chama Summit and the Continental Divide at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet, is one of the most wonderful and romantic achievements of modern railway building. West from Antonito the road rises by easy grades and labyrinthean curves, among the grassy terrace-like mesas, affording magnificent views of the great San Luis Valley, the Sangre de Cristo range and the Sierra Blanca. Reaching the Valley of the Pinos, the railway follows the steep mountain side overlooking the valley 1200 fett below. The scenery for the next ten miles is unequalled by any other railway in America. For all this distance the track describes the irregular contour of the mountains in a succession of short curves, cutting through projecting masses of rock, and running over high fills, made necessary by deep and rugged gorges. Along the way are scores of monumental rocks for which Colorado is famous, rising in fantastic columns as high as the pines beside them. Soon after passing a timbered tunnel, a sharp curve takes the train into a curve among the hills, with monument shaped rocks on one side, and fantastic castellated cliffs, rising five or six hundred feet, on the other. This is the well-known Phantom Curve. A mile beyond, the railway crosses the head of the ravine, and from this point the track runs directly towards the valley, on a line at right angles with it, to where it narrows into a mere fissure in the rocks at Toltec Gorge. The ledge along which it passes is merely a great wall across the head of the valley or canon, commanding a full view of it for many miles. Here, the beauty and grandeur of the scenery are beyond description. The trains turn a sharp curve upon the very brink of a chasm 1100 feet in depth and then plunge into a rock-cut tunnel 600 feet in length, only to emerge on the other side on the brink of another precipice, looking directly down to the bottom of the Gorge, across which the opposing cliffs rise up 2100 feet.