Durango Colorado USA - The railroad is part of Colorado's history.
 
It helped settle the west, and it carried workers and freight to and from the mines.
 
The railroad is also a very real part of Colorado's present.
 
Some of the state's historic railroads carry tourists through some of the most beautiful parts of our state.
 
"They're cool machines, they each have a personality," said Randy Babcock, the mechanical foreman for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
 
Babcock said he knows each nearly century-old locomotive well.
 
After 14 years working behind the scenes at the railroad, he has their quirks figured out.
 
"They each, 90 years later, have their own personalities and some of them are pretty fun and awesome, and others, you'd like to look at them in a park to be quite honest," Babcock said.
 
Babcock and his crew of more than 20 full-time employees keep the giant steam locomotives that pull the train cars along the railway.
 
In the summer, the trip extends between Durango and Silverton, and is the busiest steam railroad in the country.
 
"It's a year-long operation, and it's leaps and bounds beyond the next closest steam railroad in the country," Babcock said.
 
"We run approximately 600 steam trips a year and 400 of those are in the summer."
 
Learning to fix these machines is a process, Babcock said.
 
Instructions cannot be found online, so they use manuals written in the 1920s and 1930s.
 
"You don't grow up thinking you're going to work on steam trains in the 21st century," Babcock said.
 
"It's not your normal work environment for most people, and that's one of the fun things about this job."
 
When Babcock hires crew members, he looks for an understanding of mechanical engineering and other technical skills like welding, and a willingness to learn.
 
"It's a dying art, what we do here," said Charlie Cross, the assistant foreman with the Durango & Silverton.
 
"It's kind of a love affair, you put a lot of heart and soul into it, and sweat and blood sometimes."
 
It might be an unconventional job, but it is interesting every day, Babcock said.
 
They spend 22,000 hours getting at least six locomotives ready to roll during the summer.
 
They run four engines a day when they are at capacity.
 
"You can look at pictures taken in the 1920s and 1930s and say, Hey, that looks like what I did today," Babcock said.
 
The Durango & Silverton runs year-round for tourists, with many special events.
 
Anne Herbst.