Rotary Snowplow Park

The Rotary Snowplow Park Museum is CLOSED for the Season, however Engine No. 9, the Tender & Rotary Snowplow are on display year round.

Engine No. 9 is now on display at the Rotary Snowplow Park!

Engine No. 9, built by Cooke Locomotive Works, was one of a pioneering set of locomotives that used narrow-gauge rail to navigate the high, dangerous mountain terrain of Colorado. It operated on the Denver to Leadville “High Line” from 1884 to 1937, pulling passenger cars for 54 years. No. 9 pulled the last passenger train over Boreas Pass (the highest rail pass in the United States at the time) when the line was discontinued. Following its service, the locomotive went on display at the New York’s World Fair from 1939-40. Engine No. 9 is a true icon of Colorado’s narrow-gauge railroad heritage. It represents the life-blood that helped Breckenridge and other Colorado mining communities survive and thrive in the late 1800s and early 20th century. Today’s visiting public will see Engine No. 9 in the same context as when it operated – on the original High Line track that came into Breckenridge from Boreas Pass.

In the years before there were snowplows as we know them, there were rotary snowplows. These huge machines had giant, snow-blowing blades which cleared narrow gauge railroad tracks. The blades threw snow 30 feet away on either side of the tracks. Four to six steam-driven locomotives were needed to push these behemoths up Boreas Pass on the way to Breckenridge. Visitors to the Rotary Snowplow Park can see one of these machines on display and learn about transportation and the railroad in early-day Breckenridge.

The rotary snowplow you see in the Breckenridge Rotary Snowplow Park is not the one used by the Colorado & Southern Railway to get from Como to Breckenridge via Boreas Pass; the track, however, runs on the original right-of-way. This 108-ton snowplow was built in 1901 for the White Pass and Yukon Route in Alaska. It was moved to Denver in 1988, where in underwent repairs. Six months later, the restored rotary arrived in Breckenridge. It is one of only five known narrow-gauge rotaries still in existence.

Rail service over Boreas Pass came to Breckenridge in 1882. The line operated until 1937 and the tracks were dismantled in 1938.