How fitting it was that All Aboard Westcliffe’s Denver & Rio Grande caboose #0825 was moved from its interpretive display off Rosita Avenue to new prominence by the restored depot on Main Street at this particular time. It will have been 85 years next month, when D&RG filed to abandon the Westcliffe Branch and its storied service to the Valley; the last train rolled out the following year, 1938. D&RG originally reached Westcliffe and the Valley in the 1880s by way of the narrow gauge Grape Creek Branch, from Cañon City. D&RG was expanding its track after it had won “the railroad war” with Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe along the Arkansas River. Westcliffe and Silver Cliff, of course, were already known for promising silver…
