Just after putting a two-car train away in the yard and spotting caboose No. 10286, the crew of SD9 No. 6223 have put the locomotive to rest inside the spiffy looking wooden roundhouse at Leadville, Colorado, on a summer day in July 1984. The train just made a trip to the molybdenum mine at Climax, at an elevation of 11,400 feet, making this run the highest standard gauge rail operation in the U.S. at the time. Burlington Northern predecessor Colorado and Southern had an extensive narrow gauge network in the mountains of Colorado, but by 1941, only the 14-mile branch from Leadville to Climax remained.
This branch, converted to standard gauge in 1943, was isolated from the rest of the system, and a rail connection to the outside world existed through Rio Grande’s Leadville Branch and Tennessee Pass route to Pueblo. In the BN era, motive power was most commonly chopped-nosed SD9 No. 6223, specially-equipped with oversized plow, to combat the heavy winter snows at this elevation. Even the home base of Leadville is informally known as the “Two-Mile High City! After the molybdenum mine closed and traffic dried up, the branch was sold to tourist operator Leadville, Colorado and Southern in 1987.
