The Switzerland Trail: A Narrow Gauge Railroad to Nowhere in Particular

The road north of Boulder climbs into Fourmile Canyon through terrain that would have been, a century ago, the right-of-way of a narrow gauge railroad. The Switzerland Trail runs along that grade today, a former rail bed now used by hikers and mountain bikers, and it tells the story of an enterprise that was perpetually almost profitable.

The earliest segment dates to eighteen eighty-three, when the Greeley, Salt Lake and Pacific Railway pushed a narrow gauge line up from Boulder into the mining district. The company served the ore traffic coming down from camps at Gold Hill and Ward, and it served the camps themselves with supplies going up. A major flood in eighteen ninety-four destroyed much of the track and bankrupted the railroad.

The line reopened under new management as the Colorado and Northwestern Railroad. In eighteen ninety-eight, in an attempt to attract tourists as well as miners, the new operators named their scenic route the Switzerland Trail, a marketing gesture aimed at eastern vacationers who might find the alpine scenery compelling. It worked, partially. Excursion trains ran on weekends, and the route did attract visitors who wanted mountain air and a picnic at eight thousand feet.

The railroad never found the sustained traffic it needed. The mines produced less over time, and automobiles began offering the canyon roads as a more flexible alternative. The line shut down for good in nineteen nineteen. What remains is the grade itself, cut into slopes of pine and spruce, following contours that a surveyor found with a transit and a notepad sometime in the eighteen eighties.