A 24-year-old engineer named Adam Clawson spends his weekends easing a 3,000-horsepower diesel locomotive nicknamed "Black Betty" through one of Colorado's most dramatic stretches of scenery: the Royal Gorge, a 10-mile chasm carved by the Arkansas River that plunges up to 1,250 feet. The Royal Gorge Route Railroad runs a 12-mile round trip along the river from Cañon City, about an hour south of Colorado Springs, and it might be the most relaxed way to see canyon walls up close.
The ride is short but packed with landmarks. Departing from a 1914 depot, the train passes an eight-mile wooden pipeline built in 1910 that supplied Cañon City's water until 1973, then rolls directly beneath the Royal Gorge Bridge — America's highest suspension bridge, dangling roughly 1,000 feet overhead. From the platform it looks barely 18 feet wide, which it is, but seen from below it reads as a thread across a void. The train then squeezes into the gorge's narrowest point and crosses the Hanging Bridge, an 1879 engineering feat that stretches 175 feet over water with just 30 feet of canyon to spare, anchored into the granite walls by A-shaped supports.
The route nearly never happened. In the late 1870s, the Denver & Rio Grande and Santa Fe railroads fought a two-year conflict — lawsuits, sabotage, armed guards — known as the Royal Gorge War, for the right to build here. Denver & Rio Grande won, and the tracks eventually pushed on to the mining town of Leadville.
Today the tourist train (running since 1998) offers three ways to ride: Vista Dome cars with glass overhead views, a vintage dining-car Deluxe Class with booth seating and a bar, and straightforward Coach Class with table seating and a grill menu. Select dates add First Class lunch and dinner service with wine pairings. Whoever you are, you can wander into the open-air car — standing room only — which is where the gorge really earns its nickname, the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas.
The train isn't the only way in. Adventurous types can tackle a five-hour via ferrata on the canyon walls, paddle the Arkansas's rapids by raft or kayak, or look down from the bridge itself. But the railroad lets you do nothing at all while red granite towers slide past the window.
For travellers, this is an easy add-on to a Colorado itinerary: half a day from Colorado Springs, family-friendly in coach, date-worthy in First Class. Book ahead for autumn, when the canyon walls pick up colour and October afternoons are still warm enough to linger outside. Head out of season or midweek and the open-air car is yours with room to spare.
