Durango Railroad Visionary Charles Bradshaw Dies

December 31, 2013

When Charles E. Bradshaw Jr. bought the Durango to Silverton branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in 1981, it marked an important turning point for the economies of both Durango and Silverton. Bradshaw died Dec. 21 in Orlando, Fla. He was 83.

For the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, the branch was an outlier. In 1964, the company had made an attempt to abandon the route, which was thwarted, in part, by concerted lobbying from community members. The route had been disconnected from the rest of the company’s system since 1969, leading to more uncertainty about its future.

“Since the 1950s, the Denver & Rio Grande had been trying to get rid of it, and the deals kept falling through,” said Jim Mayer, who was vice president and superintendent of operations and maintenance during the first two pivotal years of Bradshaw’s ownership. “Shipping people was a whole lot different than a carload of coal, with much higher liability. From a culture around a century old, Bradshaw brought the railroad into its own. It was arguably the hugest turning point in the railroad’s history.”

Rod Barker, who owns the Strater Hotel, remembers the concern in town in those days.

“My dad and a number of others had formed the Durango Railroad Co. to try to buy it,” he said. “They were so pleased they didn’t have to do that. Charlie brought a level of commitment to ‘our’ railroad that was as deep as any member of this community.”

As the railroad turned, so, too, did Durango and Silverton.

“It saved the town of Durango,” historian Duane Smith said. “What Bradshaw did was vital. And just think what Silverton would be without it. It would be a ghost town between here and Ouray, instead of being preserved as a town and community.”

Barker sees the importance of the train firsthand.

“A large percentage of our guests come to Durango to ride the train,” he said. “People who love the historic train also love the historic Strater. It’s a part of Americana that also shapes the nature of our downtown.”

When Bradshaw bought the train on March 25, 1981, the Denver and Rio Grande was running two trains a day from the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day. He wanted to keep the opening date that first year, and there was a lot of work to be done to be ready.

With his two main officers, Mayer and Amos Cordova, vice president and director of marketing, who also was in charge of the depot, ticket sales and customer service, he undertook an ambitious program of improvements, some in those first two months and others that took a number of years.

“We became vice presidents overnight,” Cordova said, “and we had to start from scratch, from hiring people to putting the locomotives back together for the summer season.”

Starting from scratch included renaming the railroad, and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad was born.

Bradshaw had engineers and workers widen clearances along the route, particularly in the narrow Animas Canyon. The goal was to allow larger locomotives to travel the route, which then would be able to pull more cars. He also bought and refurbished several locomotives; built, refurbished and winterized new cars and gondolas; and built the Cascade Wye. For the first time in almost 100 years, significant work was done on the Highline Bridge to make sure it could carry the heavier loads.

“I bought 5,000 railroad ties that first year,” Mayer said. “We upgraded from 65-pound rail per yard of rail to 85-pound rail, which would improve the ride and allow the larger locomotives on the line.”

In Silverton, Bradshaw purchased the Silverton Depot, returning it to service in 1985. No one, except for maybe Bradshaw himself, knew how many tons of gravel for ballast was purchased and laid to raise the tracks.

“He wanted to come back to more of a purist idea,” Mayer said. “For movies back in the 1950s, they had installed big pieces of sheet metal over the smokestack to make it look like steam and over the headlight to make it look like an old oil burner. The first thing we did was take that sheet metal off to really set something up for people who loved trains.”

For Ed Zink, founder of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, Bradshaw was a key supporter in the early days, even standing at the finish line to welcome the winners in Silverton.

“The word visionary applies,” Zink said. “He had to partner with other people in the community to be strategic in insuring a stable tourism economy.”

Bradshaw dealt with several natural disasters during his ownership, including a flood that washed out several miles of track and the historic fire at the Roundhouse in 1989, which damaged all the locomotives.

“When the Roundhouse burned,” his former personal secretary Patsy Dolan said, “the ashes hadn’t even cooled down before he said, ‘We’re going to rebuild those locomotives, and we’re going to open on time.’ And he was adamant about keeping things historically correct.”

Bradshaw, who was born July 10, 1930, had made his money in Florida as a citrus grower at his family’s orchards, Hi-Acres, cattle rancher and as owner of a fertilizer plant.

Many people had stories about him as a straight shooter with some idiosyncrasies, including the fact that for several years he would accept only cash or checks. Dolan said it took some convincing to get him to accept credit cards when they began taking telephone reservations and became computerized.

When he decided to sell the railroad in the mid-1990s, he wanted to be sure his stewardship continued.

Al Harper, the current owner of the train through his company American Heritage Railways, credits Bradshaw with changing his life as well as that of the railroad.

“He took it from barely making it to carrying really big numbers,” Harper said. “And he loaned me a pile of money so I could buy it in a hurry. He told me, ‘You’re the only guy I trust with my railroad.’”

Harper’s career shifted from real estate in Florida to now owning two railroads and Rail Events, a company that organizes events such as the Polar Express, and he said he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“I want him to be remembered for what he did for this community,” Harper said, “and for giving Al Harper the opportunity to become the current guardian of this great American treasure.”

Ann Butler / Durango Herald