COLORADO MIDLAND

[Denver: Rocky Mountain Railroad Club, 1965]., 1965. First edition. First edition. Limited edition of 6000 volumes signed by the author and numbered. This is copy 5617. Thick quarto. Black cloth, gold stamping on front cover and spine, timetables on endpapers, xv [1], 467 pp., frontis. [the Colorado Midlands famous Ute chief emblem], preface, acknowledgments, double column, illustrated, four full-color paintings, maps, bibliography, index. Five folding maps in a pocket affixed to rear fly leaf, depict 1). the system map of the Colorado Midland Railway, 2). the Leadville Mining District, 1905, 3). Aspen and vicinity, 4). East and West approaches to Hagerman Pass, and 5). Map, Profile and Rail chart of the Colorado Midland Railway. In 1921, the Colorado Midland Railway went out of business and, at the time, constituted one of the largest business enterprises in the State of Colorado. It had less than 350 miles of track when it was abandoned, and only 63 locomotives remained on its roster. By rights this railway company should have been long forgotten, yet the opposite has occurred. Thanks to its incredible career, the spectacular Rocky Mountain topography it traversed, the very great difficulties of operation, and because it represented the largest abandonment then recorded in American railroad history. Fine in dust jacket, lightly rubbed at spine ends.