Telluride Daily Journal October 26, 1909
REGULAR TRAIN SERVICE IS RESUMED BETWEEN TELLURIDE AND DURANGO
First Passenger Train to Reach Telluride Station in Fifty-Four Days Will Arrive From Durango Tonight, and Tomorrow the Regular Daily Schedule Will be Restored on the Rio Grande Southern Ry.
A passenger train will be in Telluride this evening having left Durango this morning on the old schedule, and commencing tomorrow morning regular service will be resumed to the south as of old, the train leaving Telluride at 7 in the morning. During this week trains will be run by telegraph orders, though practically on the old time schedule. A new time card is being printed this week which will go into effect next Sunday morning.
Passengers will be carried via Durango, and the same rates will obtain to Pueblo and all points beyond as heretofore via Montrose and Salida. To Salida and all points west via Durango and Alamosa, the same rates will apply as heretofore via Ridgway. The same concessions have been granted on the freight rates and will continue until the road is again opened to Ridgway. Freight billed to Telluride and enroute via the northern route, now at Salida or this side of there, will be forwarded to Placerville, but hereafter all freight from Pueblo or beyond, will be brought around via Durango.
Some four freight trains left Durango today and it is expected that four trains will make the daily trip. The Rio Grande Southern have five engines on the south end and has borrowed four from the Rio Grande. It is probable that several more will be sent from Ridgway around by way of Salida and Alamosa.
A freight will be in this afternoon, with a few cars of coal and empties for the loading of concentrates, which will be distributed among the several mining companies, also a carload of lime for the Liberty Bell, of which that mill is in urgent need.
There are said to be 25 cars of coal between Rico and Telluride, and 100 cars between the mines and this point. These will be rushed in with all possible expedition, and it is confidently hoped that the fuel shortage will be relieved within two or three days, and that within a week the Telluride and Pandora yards will be cleaned of their accumulation of cars loaded with concentrates.
Mr. Mears, with his construction crew will proceed to put the finishing touches on the work he has done in opening the road from the south, so that on the whole Telluride is in position to take a comparatively complacent view of the situation.
Beginning Wednesday morning all mail and express will be carried via Durango. Twenty-four hours more time is required this way than over the northern route by way Ridgway and Salida, but this is forgotten in the satisfaction derived from the assurance that railroad communication is once more restored.
In the meanwhile, the stage to Placerville and train service from there to Ridgway will continue as for the past two weeks. An effort is being made to induce the proprietor of the stage line to send that vehicle out an hour later in the morning, at 6:37, instead of 5:30 as it is claimed this affords ample time to connect with the train at Placerville where the train arrives from Ridgeway at 9 and starts back at 9:30.
