It’s good to see that discussion about the impact of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad’s decision to move the bulk of its operations to Rockwood Station is finally occurring.
Prior efforts by Rockwood residents to discuss this yielded little to no acknowledgement of the real risk to safety and negative environmental impact on the surrounding wetlands and forest that will result from this move.
What is surprising is the lack of reaction to the fact that the D&SNG is moving three of the four trains a day out of the downtown Durango Depot, diverting as much as 75% of daily tourist traffic away from downtown shops and restaurants – just when we are trying to reinvigorate these businesses and jobs that have suffered greatly during the pandemic.
The train is a well-loved, vital component of Durango’s downtown community. For D&SNG to abandon its downtown home is not good. It will harm our economic recovery. Further, downtown businesses must recognize that having already lost 75% of the train’s operations, it is a small step for D&SNG to abandon Downtown Durango altogether. What then?
The long-term impact of D&SNG’s move out of downtown Durango is alarming; I am very concerned for our community. Yet people are strangely silent on this topic. Do our downtown shops and businesses understand what is going on? What do they think of this?
Lisa BeckelDurango
