Still Here After All These Years (at least part of it is)...

The Colorado and Southern Railway is one of the West's most fabled lines

even though it spent much of its existence as a subsidiary of the much larger Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system. The C&S was officially incorporated on December 19, 1898 as a means to bring stability to several bankrupt railroads which radiated west, north, and south of Denver. All of this information is taken from the excellent website: https://www.american-rails.com/colorado.html The C&S's earliest predecessor was the Colorado & Clear Creek Railroad, which was chartered on February 9, 1865 as a narrow-gauge mining railroad. The railroad reached its final length in 1884 when it chartered the Georgetown, Breckenridge & Leadville Railway to stretch west of Georgetown and the small mining town of Graymont. The Colorado and Southern Railway (C&S) came about because of the bankruptcy of the Union Pacific on October 13, 1893. Officially, the C&S was born on December 19, 1898 to take over not only the Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf Railway but also the narrow-gauge operations it held. The C&S itself operated for only ten years as a independent company before being purchased by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q) in 1908. For the Colorado & Southern's part it remained a separate entity from the CB&Q and operated independently, partly due to the fact that Texas law required such and that all railroads operating within its borders be headquartered within the state. Due to the narrow-gauge operations becoming less and less profitable the railroad slowly sold off or abandoned the network piecemeal until the final leg, still in operation to Golden, Colorado, was converted to standard gauge in 1943. In 1980 the line reverted solely to the Burlington Northern ownership. Today this section is still operated to serve the Coors Brewery located there although virtually all the rest of the C&S's once vast narrow-gauge operations are but a memory. The lone exception is a small, 4.5-mile section of the line around Georgetown which today operates as the Georgetown Loop Railroad during the summer months of the year.

This post card was published by Audio-Visual Designs out of Rearlton, New York. It is one of 333 post cards that I have from this publisher. AVD was started in 1964 by Carl Sturner for the sole purpose of providing railfans with sound recordings of locos and trains as well as with photochrome postcards of trackside photos. These stunning color images were taken all over the country by some well-known photographers such as David Sweetland. The history and product line of AVD can be found on the company's website at www.audiovisualdesigns.com