More than a dozen Western Slope community leaders and rail advocates are urging Colorado’s governor and the state transportation department to consider additional train services in rural resort areas as part of the state’s proposed mountain rail project. 

In an Oct. 21 letter addressed to Gov. Jared Polis and the Colorado Department of Transportation, a group calling itself the Western Rail Coalition said there is a need for new local passenger rail service between Leadville, Vail and Glenwood Springs. The group asked for a study on the proposal to be folded into the ongoing efforts to expand the existing rail line between Denver and Winter Park into Steamboat Springs and all the way to Craig.

While the coalition says it is fully supportive of that project, “we believe that such a limited scope cannot be the extent of our state’s short-term ambitions,” the letter states 

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“We’re trying to put forward a vision of what the Western Slope could look like if Colorado really went big on rail,” said James Flattum, a Denver-based rail advocate who is helping coordinate the newly-formed coalition. “There’s so much latent demand, so much latent infrastructure that we could reactivate for the use of Coloradans.”

In a statement, Colorado Department of Transportation spokesperson Matt Inzeo said the agency has received the letter but has not taken any formal action.

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The proposal calls for reviving rail services on the dormant Tennessee Pass Line, an approximately 200-mile stretch of track between Pueblo and Glenwood Springs. 

First constructed in the late 1880s to support the state’s mining boom, the line was later used to transport freight trains. But in 1997, the rail line’s owner, Union Pacific, ceased freight operations entirely. In the years since area officials have mulled resurrecting the line for passenger services. 

Efforts last year fizzled out after a billionaire developer and Colorado landowner dropped his bid to purchase a stretch of the line for the purpose of transporting grain while offering to pay for once-a-day passenger services between Pueblo and Minturn. 

In its letter, the coalition group says there is current interest from the Rio Grande Pacific Corporation, which has a lease on the Tennessee Pass Line, to run a “local passenger service on the line with quiet, modern, and low-emission rail vehicles.”

The envisioned service would connect Minturn, Dowd/Vail, Avon/Beaver Creek, Edwards, Eagle, Eagle County Regional Airport and Gypsum with minimum hourly service, with some trains continuing onto Leadville in the south and Glenwood Springs in the west.

Doing so would provide “a valuable alternative to the traffic-choked stretch of (Interstate 70) through Glenwood Canyon” and create more reliability for commuters in the Leadville area who are “highly vulnerable to disruptive road closures along Highway 24,” the letter states. 

Local officials supportive of the proposal also see it as a way to bridge their affordable housing and transit goals and combat climate change by reducing emissions. 

Eagle County Commissioner Kathy Chandler-Henry said many workers in the county have to live outside town centers because of the high housing costs, “So being able to get rid of some of those barriers of getting to work by jumping on a train would be great.”

Chandler-Henry said it’s critical the state look at a range of regional transit options “especially ones that can move a great number of people in a climate-friendly manner.” 

If efforts do move forward, Chandler-Henry said she’d like to see the line be exclusively used to support passenger services — though Flattum said there could be the possibility of opening the railway to some local commercial operations as well. 

What the group doesn’t want to see is heavy-duty, multistate freight trains roaring up and down the valley. 

“We have neighborhoods that are built right along the train tracks,” Chandler-Henry said. “When it used to run freight (trains) — that’s what’s in people’s minds.”

Officials are weary of welcoming freight operations so close to their mountain communities, especially in light of the controversial Uinta Basin Railway project. The proposal, which remains tied up in legal fights led by Eagle County, would add 88 miles of new rail line to connect remote oil basins in Utah with the national rail network. If built, the railway would stretch along the Colorado River, hauling around 350,000 barrels of waxy crude oil a day. 

In its letter, the coalition group calls the prospect of running oil trains on the Tennessee Pass Line “exceedingly unlikely” especially if the line were to be used for passenger services. 

The line “has not been an economical route for the operations of heavy freight trains — including oil trains — for nearly 30 years due to punishingly-steep grades that are far more expensive for freight rail companies to operate over when other route options are available,” the letter states. “However, these steep grades are much less of a hindrance for passenger trains which can operate with much lighter, quieter, and low-carbon-impact vehicles.”

A robust study will be needed to know the project’s true cost, but the coalition estimates it may be in the range of $200 million to $400 million. While the group’s letter states this is “no small amount of money” it would be substantially less than the ongoing Floyd Hill project on I-70, currently estimated to cost $700 million. 

The coalition believes the project could use funds from the state’s oil and gas production fees as well as tourism-based revenue streams. 

State Sen. Dylan Roberts, who represents mountain and Western Slope counties in the legislature, said the timing is right for exploring new rail proposals in Colorado thanks to an influx of funding. 

Earlier this year, Colorado’s legislature passed a bill that allows the state to impose a $3 per day fee on all rental cars to help pay for transportation projects. The fee is set to go into effect in 2025 and is estimated to bring in $50 million per year. 

Also coming down the pike is federal money from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which set aside $66 billion for rail development in the country. State officials hope they can leverage funds from the car rental fee to tap into those federal dollars for the mountain rail project connecting Denver to Craig. 

Roberts said that initiative could be precedent-setting and inspire future investments in other passenger rail projects, like the Tennessee Pass Line proposal. 

“I think it’s important that we prove to Coloradans that it works, that it’s financially viable, it has the ridership, it has the demand,” Roberts said. “I think if we can show success with getting the mountain rail line open for passenger service, the connectivity from Eagle County down to Leadville would naturally follow both logically and fiscally.”

Still, there are hurdles to getting such a project on track. 

Unlike the mountain rail project, which would connect tracks that are currently operational between Winter Park, Steamboat Springs and Craig, the Tennessee Pass Line has not run trains in 26 years. 

Roberts said any passenger rail service must have a mix of public-private investment to make it financially plausible, adding that the Tennessee Pass railway would likely need to bring on some commercial operations. The tracks being utilized for the mountain rail project, for example, support coal freights and could share the line with passenger trains. Coal operations along that line, however, are scheduled to end in late 2028.

Roberts said he supports studying the Tennessee Pass proposal, adding there’s no reason the rail line shouldn’t be part of the broader conversation around passenger rail in the state. 

In the meantime, local officials say their next steps are to coordinate regionally and gauge interest within their communities. 

“There’s a lot of unanswered questions,” said Chandler-Henry, the Eagle County commissioner. “I don’t think we know yet (what the support will be), but I do think there’s a promise to take some next steps and pursue this.”