The unloading of freight on the Silverton Railroad was quite informal. Outside of Red Mountain the line maintained no bona fide stations or agents. Therefore, materials were dropped off, especially for the mines, at the most convenient points. So far the railroad owned only one locomotive, Number 100, and so had to rent from the D. & R. G. The same was true of cars and coaches. The railroad had been projected to Ouray, 26.6 miles in all. Mears might have used his toll road but that was, in some places, 19 per cent grade, out of the question for a railroad. The steepest ever attempted in Colorado was 7.6%. Construction from Ironton to the foot of Ironton Park would have been easy but there the canon began where the greater part of six miles would have had to be blasted out of solid rock, where slide rock could have been quite bothersome, where snow blockades would have been continuous for a long winter and where snowslides, two in particular, the Riverside and the Mother Cline, that ran every year, would have been almost impossible to conquer. The Riverside slide that came from two sides, filling the canon and burying the wagon road, often had to be tunnelled to accommodate the summer traffic. The writer, with her parents, was through one in the summer of 1903 or ’04. At the same time surveys were made for another branch of the system, one that was to go up the Animas River from Silverton to Mineral Point, 19 miles, and possibly across the divide to Lake City. Through operation to Ironton began in June 1889. The claim that two daily passenger trains ran there has generally been disbelieved but the following table for 1889, copied from the Official Railway Guide of May 1891, proves the point. SILVERTON RAILROAD Otto Mears, President S. K. Hooper, General Passenger and Ticket Agent, Denver, Colo. Moses Liverman, General Manager and Ticket Agent, Silverton, Colo. October 23, 1889 []Mixed []Pass’r Miles []Pass’r []Mixed Lv. 7:00 A.M. Lv. 1:10 P.M. .0 Silverton Ar. 11:10 A.M. Ar. 5:20 P.M. 7:34 A.M. 1:44 P.M. 5.0 Burro Bridge 10:36 A.M. 4:46 P.M. 7:49 A.M. 1:59 P.M. 7.5 Chattanooga 10:21 A.M. 4:31 P.M. 8:11 A.M. 2:21 P.M. 12.5 Summit 9:58 A.M. 4:09 P.M. 8:25 A.M. 2:35 P.M. 15.0 Red Mountain 9:50 A.M. 4:00 P.M. 8:26 A.M. 2:36 P.M. 15.5 Vanderbilt 9:44 A.M. 3:54 P.M. 8:27 A.M. 2:37 P.M. 16.0 Yankee Girl 9:43 A.M. 3:53 P.M. 8:45 A.M. 2:55 P.M. 17.0 Paymaster 9:25 A.M. 3:35 P.M. Ar. 9:00 A.M. Ar. 3:10 P.M. 20.0 Ironton Lv. 9:10 A.M. Lv. 3:20 P.M. [a]Daily except Sunday. Everything was finished and working properly. Mr. Gibbs must have had the feeling of “well done” and that he deserved a reward. Mrs. Gibbs tells the following story: