Train riders were told to walk four blocks to the train depot rather than reboarding at the usual place, Blair and 12th streets, in the heart of the Silverton business district. The change meant tourists spent more time walking and less time shopping. Sanders said the one complaint she hears all the time about the train is that riders don't have enough time in Silverton to eat, look around and shop. Sanders, a geologist who turned to the tourism trade when the Sunnyside Gold Mine closed in 1991, said the uncertainties of this first train season under First American Railways' management have left everyone in town edgy. Everybody has been so supportive of the train.
People are really good and considerate toward train passengers.
Several merchants drove harried railroad passengers the half mile or so to the depot so they wouldn't miss their train. Eloise Parker, proprietor of the Hitchin' Post gift shop for 38 years, still regrets telling a young man, with babe in arms, that he was wrong thinking he had to walk all the way to the depot. She told him the trains always load right next to the Old Arcade. Only later did she learn that she had steered the man wrong because of the surprise change in the historic arrangement. I got to thinking of the older people walking all that way.