Trinidad, CO (TRI)

Located at the foot of Raton Pass in the Purgatoire River Valley, Trinidad served as an important stopover on the Santa Fe Trail between St. Joseph, Mo., and Santa Fe, N.M.

110 West Pine Street
Trinidad, CO 81082

Annual Ticket Revenue (FY 2023): $671,243
Annual Station Ridership (FY 2023): 6,040

Ownerships
Routes Served
Contact
Local Community Links

Facility Ownership: N/A
Parking Lot Ownership: BNSF Railway
Platform Ownership: BNSF Railway
Track Ownership: BNSF Railway

Southwest Chief

Rob Eaton
Regional Contact
governmentaffairssea@amtrak.com
For information about Amtrak fares and schedules, please visit Amtrak.com or call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245).

Amtrak customers at Trinidad wait for the arrival of the Southwest Chief on the platform. The old depot, a wood frame structure, was demolished in 2007 to accommodate a multi-year highway widening project that included the rebuilding of a bridge over the Purgatoire River. Former depots in Trinidad had been moved and rebuilt a number of times for various reasons, including flooding and track relocation.

Over the summer of 2011, as a part of Amtrak’s Mobility First Initiative funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Trinidad stop received a new $1.2 million concrete platform with a tactile edge, fencing and lighting. Amtrak also funded a new wheelchair lift.

The city of Trinidad was founded in 1876 and was considered at the time as a possible capital for the state of Colorado. It is now the seat for Las Animas County. Located at the foot of Raton Pass, it was an important stopover on the Santa Fe Trail between St. Joseph, Mo., and Santa Fe, N.M. It sits in the Purgatoire River Valley between Simpson’s Rest and Fisher’s Peak.

Early indigenous inhabitants left tipi rings and petroglyphs that can be viewed today in the Trinidad Lake State Park and nearby canyons. As early as 1594, Spanish expeditions passed through this river valley. In the 1800s, this riverside location, shaded by cottonwoods, became a favorite spot to rest for both cattle herds and travelers on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail before crossing the Raton Pass into the New Mexico Territory.

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway reached Trinidad in 1878; then cattle began to be shipped by rail instead of driven through the middle of the city. Trinidad became a central location for wide-ranging ranching operations such as the Prairie Land and Cattle Company and the Matador Cattle Company, one of the greatest in North America.

In the 1880s, Bat Masterson was the town Marshall, and other colorful characters associated with the old west passed through town as well, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp among them. The 1880s up through the early 1900s were a boom time for Trinidad; and El Corazon de Trinidad National Historic District downtown preserves more than 40 Victorian buildings and 6.5 miles of brick streets from this period.

The town’s principal industry shifted from cattle to coal mining in the 1900s, supported by the railroad. Trinidad’s immense coal mines were legendary, but coal mining slowly died down, and in the 1980s, natural gas replaced coal as the primary industry for the area. Since then, tourism and luxury resorts and homes have come to Trinidad, along with some medical specialties of world renown.