The Colorado Eastern Railroad was a narrow gauge line that ran from Denver out to a low grade coal mine just east of the cache location. Built by the Denver Land & Railroad Company in 1885 on the cheap, it lasted until 1915 when it was abandoned.
The coal that the railroad transported was of such low grade that one source reported that it had to be wrapped in straw to get it to burn. The condition of the rails was so bad that they could only be negotiated at a very slow speed. Certainly this railroad was not in any great shape, so why did it exist for 30 years? It turns out that it cost $25 a day to keep the railroad running and the total take was only $1 per day. How can this be? It sure sounds like the Federal budget to me. It turns out that what this railroad had was trackage rights into the city of Denver, something that other railroads that wanted into Denver would happily buy for a bucket full of money. But no deal was ever struck so the railroad just faded away. There is an interesting and humorous article that was published in the July 13, 1902 New York Times about the railroad.
Time has not been kind to the physical evidence that the railroad left. The only physical evidence that it existed at all is a slight depression the rails were laid in to the west at about 290 degrees true from the cache location. I viewed aerial photographs and was able to see where the grade had been located to the west of the cache location.