Denver and Rio Grande (film)
[2] The film's storyline is a fictional account based on two factual right-of-way struggles in 1878-1879 between the D&RG and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (here the Cañon City & San Juan RR [N 2]): across the Raton Pass from Trinidad, Colorado to Raton, New Mexico, where an armed confrontation actually took place, and the "Royal Gorge War" over a route between Cañon City and Leadville, Colorado.[2] In the late 1870s, chief engineer Gil Harkness[N 5] and construction foreman Jim Vesser[N 6] are surveying a new route for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG) through the Royal Gorge in Colorado.Vesser learns that a crew from the competing Cañon City & San Juan Railroad is also in the gorge and confronts former friend Bob Nelson and his unscrupulous boss, McCabe.Linda, who is actually Nelson's sister and is spying for McCabe after being told by him that Vesser murdered her brother, angrily accuses him of acting above the law.Linda reveals his plans to McCabe, who assembles his drunken thugs to prevent Palmer from getting to Denver by stealing a D&RG train and seizing all its stations to block the tracks.