On a bluebird day at Colorado’s oldest major ski area, they celebrated the resurrection of a train and the conductor credited with its revival.
Train enthusiasts, skiers, travelers, volunteers — they gathered, some unknowingly but most fully aware, for a retirement celebration of Brad Swartzwelter, the conductor of Amtrak’s Winter Park Express.
March 31 marked the train’s final trip of the 2024 ski season, and the swan song for Swartzwelter, who logged 212 trips as conductor of the Winter Park Express since 2015.
The “Express” is a nonstop, two-hour train ride from Denver’s Union Station to the base of Winter Park Resort. The route dates back to 1940, the same year Winter Park Resort opened to skiers.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad originally operated the line — then called the “Ski Train” — until 2009, when rising costs and the global financial crisis resulted in cancellation of the service.
Swartzwelter’s trips leading the ski train total about 24,000 miles, nearly the circumference of the earth. The impressive achievement is made more notable by the fact that Swartzwelter, who turns 60 in June, willed it to be this way.
“We would not be where we are today if it wasn't for Brad,” said Gary DeFrange, the former president of Winter Park Resort, who rode the train Sunday. “You know, in your life, every now and then you meet somebody that you feel good about and you feel you created an immediate relationship. And that's what it felt like with Brad.”
Swartzwelter logged about 80 rides on the Rio Grande Ski Train in the 1990s as an intern. When the historic route first stopped running in March of 2009, he was eager to bring it back. In 2014, he read a Colorado Rail Passenger Association (ColoRail) article penned by Bob Brewster about re-establishing the route and quickly sketched out a plan.
Swartzwelter picked up the phone and called Winter Park Resort. He explained that he was a conductor for Amtrak and said, “I need to talk to the most important person in Winter Park.” At the time, that person was DeFrange.
“He had a basic proposal, and it was actually in pretty good shape. We did some tweaking to it … and we were off and running,” DeFrange said. “As a team, we just did a great job. And without Brad, we wouldn't have that train today.”
Amtrak approved the plan. The first move was holding a one-day-only event in 2015 to celebrate the line’s 75th anniversary, as well as to gauge rider interest. Four hundred tickets sold out within a day. Amtrak promptly added a second trip.
The Express made its permanent return in 2017.
On Sunday’s trip, passengers snapped photos and recorded video of Swartzwelter’s every move, no matter how quotidian.
The man knows his angles, and it’s not just train geeks who take his portrait. His mug has appeared in The New York Times, The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain PBS and more.
Swartzwelter is in many ways a performer, a locomotive luminary. The ride to Winter Park is characterized by his affable commentary over the intercom.
“Ladies and gentleman, we’re now going along the Plainview Siding,” he informed passengers over the intercom as the train passed through the area between Coal Creek Canyon and Eldorado Springs. “This is usually the point in our journey where I make fun of the great and beautiful state of Nebraska. I’m not going to do it today because fortunately we don’t have to look at Nebraska, because it’s shrouded in fog.”
Swartzwelter had a rapt following throughout his final ride as conductor, passengers leaving their seats and following the conductor from train car to train car. Few wanted to be outside of earshot, lest they miss a train joke or Amtrak anecdote.
“I’m passionate about rail for the same reason thousands and thousands of train fans are: I’m ill,” he deadpanned. “Many people fight that. I simply decided to give up and embrace it.”
Some watched him with a reverence usually reserved for heads of state or virtuosic artists — one man said it was an “honor to watch him work” as Swartzwelter wiped a window with a paper towel.
To the passengers, this bearded conductor was Michelaneglo putting the finishing touches on the Sistine Chapel.
“I get the recognition. I get noticed,” Swartzwelter said. “But in reality, the hard work is being done in the trenches, on the front lines. And there are hundreds of them — there are people that clean the train, people that fuel the train. There is so much, and I get to be the face of it. I’m nothing — this train is nothing — without everybody pulling their weight.”
Swartzwelter couldn’t have asked for a more scenic retirement celebration. Fog covered the horizon as the train carved above Eldorado Canyon State Park. For a few moments, the train felt like an airplane.
The 56-mile, serpentine route of the Express uses the same line as Amtrak’s California Zephyr, one of just two inter-city rail options in Colorado. The other is Amtrak’s Southwest Chief.
The Express passes through Crescent, Pinecliff, Rollinsville and 30 different tunnels on its way to Winter Park. Swartzwelter can tell you about all of them. He even knows some of the people who live along the tracks, often waving back to them from one of the train’s many windows.
The first two cars on the train were reserved for Swartzwelter’s friends and family. Scores of passengers wore a pin adorned with his portrait. Swartzwelter’s mother, wife, children and grandchildren were all riding with him, dutifully laughing along to the jokes he made over the intercom.
“It is so humbling for this mother to see what that man’s dream and enthusiasm has brought about,” said Swartzwelter’s mother, Diana, as the train snaked through the Flatirons.
When Swartzwelter was about five years old, his family would vacation at Sheriff Ranch in Granby, where they would fish in the Colorado River. Swartzwelter, though, was far more interested in waving at the passing locomotives. Half a century later, those trains — some operated by Swartzwelter — still roll over the tracks.
“I knew he would be on trains,” Diana said.
The Express arrived at the Winter Park platform right at 9 a.m. Clad in ski boots, many passengers eagerly departed for a near-cloudless day on the slopes. Brad and his crew quickly opened the lower cabins so people could grab their skis and snowboards.
But many passengers weren’t in Winter Park to ski. They were there for conductor Brad.
A group of them reserved the second floor of Doc's Roadhouse at the base of the resort for Swartzwelter’s retirement party. Friends gave speeches about Swartzwelter’s dedication to his work and the train community as a whole. Some people cried. Swartzwelter delivered a brief speech, too, focusing mainly on how the Express came to be.
“I think Brad's still going to be a big part of this community,” said Michelle Kempema, the executive director of the Colorado Model Railroad Museum in Greeley. “I think he'll continue to promote rail travel and just passenger rail in general.”
Often, the train ride back to Union Station is quieter than the ride up to Winter Park. Some people will stay at the resort for the night, meaning the train is less crowded. Others, tired from a day in the snow, will pull the curtain closed and rest their eyes.
That was not the case this time.
Since it was the last trip of the season, everybody rode back Sunday afternoon. The mood was jubilant. A friend of Swartzwelter conducted a raffle over the intercom, giving away Winter Park Express mugs, vintage issues of Passenger Train Journal and signed copies of Swartzwelter’s novel, “The Last Zephyr.” (The disaster-thriller, which Swartzwelter authored under the nom de plume C.B. Blackforest, follows the passengers and crew of a train that survives a catastrophic volcanic explosion because it was inside Colorado’s Moffat Tunnel.)
A small, impromptu concert broke out as Swartzwelter passed through the scenic car on the ride back to Union Station. Swartzwelter briefly led the car in singing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” which begins with the lyrics, “I hear the train a-comin', it's rolling 'round the bend…”
“Brad doesn't work hard,” said Rosini Russell, who started teaching skiing at Winter Park in the mid-80s. “It's hard work if you don't like doing what you're doing. It's easy for Brad. Brad's a social butterfly. Brad has a wealth of knowledge. I can't imagine anyone else doing the job that Brad has done over all these years. He makes it look easy.”
Russell added, “Good luck for whoever replaces him.”
Copyright 2024 Rocky Mountain PBS.
This story from Rocky Mountain PBS was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico including Aspen Public Radio. It was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico including Aspen Public Radio.