A little more insight on this - the current end of track at the Loop ends right at the Georgetown city limit. When rebuilt in 1984/85, the track ended 4 or 5 carlengths further west. We, as the operators of the Loop at the time, wanted to extend the track further east to be able to back the entire length of the train (which, at the time, had grown to 8 cars) past the high bridge. Investigation of the property ownership indicated that we would be able to extend east about another 1/4 mile up to some privately owned property just after coming around the curve up from the Guanella Pass road. As soon as this was proposed the Town of Georgetown started making noises about charging a "seat tax" on any train operations that took place inside the city limit. We determined we wanted to avoid that so only built down to the city limit. At the same time we extended the length of the passing track at Devil's Gate as we were limited to only being able to run around 6 cars as the track was built.
I always thought it would have been neat to have been able to extend the Loop trackage at least down to the Guanella Pass road. Just after going out of the rock cut above the road, the railroad roadbed gets wider as it passed just above a large mill next to the creek in the valley below. There looked to me to be enough room for a spur track there. I don't know if there ever was a spur there - does anyone else know? Anyway, the property there was owned by a person who let it be known he would not allow the railroad to be rebuilt across his property. He even went on to say he bought the property with the expressed intention of blocking the railroad from ever being extended into Georgetown. There are several other pieces of the old right of way into town that were purchased for the same reason. These folks just were not going to let it happen. The right of way is now sufficiently built upon to keep the railroad from ever being extended into town.
Phil Johnson of GLRR, Inc.
