Cripple Creek's Coal-Fired Steam Train and the Mine Below It

Most people drive up to Cripple Creek for the casinos and never notice the small depot at the edge of town, where a real coal-fired steam engine is building pressure. The Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad runs a four-mile round trip, about 45 minutes, south past the old Midland Terminal wye and a string of historic mines that built this gold camp in the 1890s. The locomotives are the genuine article, some dating to the early 1900s, so you ride behind real smoke and the sound of working steel. The railroad lists a 2026 season running from late May through the first weekend in October, with departures roughly every 70 minutes and no reservations taken, so it is first come, first served.

A short drive away, the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine has long offered something rarer: a guided tour that drops 1,000 feet down a vertical shaft into a real hard-rock mine. Worth knowing before you count on it: the mine has been closed following a 2024 incident, so confirm its status directly before driving up. Everything here sits near 9,500 feet, where hours shift with the weather, so check the railroad’s official page for current days and times first.