The Little Engine

If you visit the High Line Railroad Park today, you’ll be steps from where narrow-gauge rails once threaded their way into Breckenridge. Engine No. 9, the centerpiece of today’s railroad park, steamed through hundreds of times between 1884 and 1937—hauling passengers, ore, livestock, and the everyday goods that connected Breckenridge to other mining towns and Denver.

Built in 1884 by the Cooke Locomotive and Machine Works of Paterson, New Jersey, Engine No. 9 is one of only eight engines of its kind ever produced. This compact coal-burning locomotive turned fire and water into steam, driving pistons that powered the wheels across some of the most rugged terrain in Colorado.

Steam engines like No. 9 carried their own lifeline: a tender loaded with coal and water. Along the route from Como to Breckenridge, as many as four water tanks once stood ready to refill thirsty locomotives. A restored example, Baker Tank, still stands on Boreas Pass Road as a reminder of the infrastructure that kept these trains moving.

Engine No. 9 served on one of Colorado’s most dramatic railways: the Denver, South Park & Pacific’s High Line. Conceived as part of an ambitious plan to connect Denver to the Pacific Ocean, the line never reached Utah, let alone the coast. But by the early 1880s, it had achieved an engineering triumph—crossing the Continental Divide at Boreas Pass, then the highest railroad pass in the nation at 11,493 feet.

Rail service to Breckenridge and Dillon began in 1882, and by 1884 the line extended to Leadville. What had once been a multi-day journey by stagecoach could now be completed in about 12 hours. The railroad brought mail, fresh seafood, fine china, pianos, coal, and mining equipment into the once-isolated mountain towns, while trains leaving Breckenridge hauled ore, cattle, and sheep to markets in Denver. Narrow-gauge construction—rails spaced three feet apart instead of the standard four feet eight and a half inches—allowed the line to snake through tight mountain curves and steep grades.

Engine No. 9 pulled its final passenger train from Leadville to Denver on April 10, 1937, the year the Colorado & Southern abandoned the High Line. Afterward, the locomotive lived several lives: appearing at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, delighting visitors at the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair, and carrying passengers on tourist lines in South Dakota and at Colorado’s Georgetown Loop Railroad.

In December 2010, after decades of travel and restoration, Engine 9 returned home to Summit County, on loan from History Colorado. Its presence in Breckenridge today invites park visitors to imagine the sights, sounds, and sheer determination of those who built their lives along the High Line.