That's hilarious. Sort of like someone who buys a $100 Rolex on the street thinking it's hot and then complains to the police that it's fake.

Regarding the speculation as to if Tennessee Pass would connect to oil trains coming off Rio Grande Pacific's planned Uinta Basin, a company spokesperson addressed the issue recently saying there are no plans at all to run oil trains on TP.

To Quote: “To be clear, Colorado Midland & Pacific has no plan, intention, or means to operate oil trains across the Tennessee Pass line. CMP has an agreement for a portion of the Tennessee Pass only – that is from Sage to Parkdale. CMP seeks to explore and develop commuter/passenger rail and local freight opportunities within that ~160-mile corridor, and we wish to do so in coordination and consultation with communities and planning agencies in the area.”

https://arkvalleyvoice.com/colorado-mid ... ssee-pass/

I think perhaps we should be looking outside the box on this one..

To that end, let's suppose that the proposal to lease a portion of the line to the Rio Grande Pacific is an attempt by the UP to blunt and/or deflect the Colorado Pacific's attempt to purchase the line. This supposition would require that the UP wishes to maintain control of the Tennessee Pass line and has come to the realization that Colorado Pacific stands a reasonable chance of getting the line through the same Surface Transportation Board process that was used by Colorado Pacific to get the Towner Line away from A&K Railway supply. On the surface, it would seem that leasing a portion of the Tennessee Pass line to a new operator would render moot for several years the basis upon which Colorado Pacific might be able to force the UP to sell the line, even if the new lessor never ran a train or replaced so much as a single spike. Should the lessor actually run an occasional train, the point may well be rendered moot indefinitely, thus allowing the UP to retain control over and ownership of the line.

This idea, of course, requires several assumptions;

1) The Union Pacific wants to retain the Tennessee Pass line, even though they have no interest in running trains over it. I don't really think this one takes any great leap of faith, if the UP wanted rid of the line, the could have abandoned it in 1997 (or any time in the last 23 years) or sold it. Instead, they have continued to pay taxes and other expenses for over two decades on an asset that has generated $0. Say what you will, but UP management is not stupid and they have chosen this course of action for a reason.
(quick side note, the UP did sell a portion of the line, from Canon City to Parkdale, the to Canon City & Royal Gorge / Rock & Rail groups. Terms of the sale included the UP retaining the right to run freight trains on the line, serve local customers on the line and maintain dispatching authority for ALL trains on the line. Thus, while the CC&RG owns the track, it has to ask the UP for permission to use it. Additionally, UP freight trains, should there ever be any would take priority over any CC&RG and/or R&R trains. As such, the sale of that portion of the line in no way jeopardized the UP's continued control of the Tennessee Pass line as a whole.)

2) The Tennessee Pass Line has value as a through and/or bridge line. Colorado Pacific certainly thinks that this is the case and I would argue that the UP does as well, hence their desire to retain control over it. For several decades, until the mid 1990's, the Tennessee Pass Line, coupled with the Missouri Pacific line from Kansas City to Pueblo (the Colorado portion of which is now Colorado Pacific's "Towner Line" and the Southern Pacific's line west from Salt Lake City was part of a well-used route from Kansas City to the west coast that allowed the SP & D&RGW (later just the SP) to compete with the UP's transcontinental line as well as the Santa Fe's.

Congruent with the mid/late 1990's mega mergers (UP/SP and BN/ATSF specifically), the Federal Government had concerns about monopolies emerging from the sudden decrease in numbers of independent railroads and imposed conditions on the mergers, namely the imposition of running rights for through trains and the ability to serve and develop local customers on the line of a competing railroad. Among the lines affected by this were the UP's former D&RGW lines in Colorado; the Moffat Line and the Tennessee Pass Line. This is why, to this day, you see BNSF trains running from Denver to Ogden over the Moffat line.

The UP recognized that the Tennessee Pass line, especially when coupled with the Towner Line would have value to their competitors as a bridge line, even though it would be a redundant route for the UP to operate. As such, the UP abandoned the former MP line from Kansas City to Pueblo, in sections. Portions were sold off to shortlines while other chunks, with no local customers on them, were simply torn up, thus rendering the route useless as part of a Kansas City to the west coast through route.

While the BNSF was interested in the possibility of utilizing the trackage rights over the Tennessee Pass line that it had been granted, the UP's shuttering of the line and allowing BNSF trains to use the Moffat Line rendered the point moot. That said, the trackage rights would continue to exist, even if the Tennessee Pass Line were sold. That is to say that the BNSF has the ability to operate a train over the UP from Minturn to Ogden just as much as it does from Denver to Ogden. BNSF already has trackage rights on the UP from Pueblo to Canon City, these are used by Rock & Rail trains to get to Pueblo. Thus if the Tennessee pass line wee to be sold to a new owner and that owner were to be on good terms with the BNSF, that owner would, in essence, have their own line from Pueblo to the west coast, free and clear from the UP. This would benefit the BNSF as well as it would open up a route west of Pueblo.

Colorado Pacific clearly recognizes this, as it is central to their business plan, and I would argue that the UP does as well. The only question I see is weather the UP is holding onto the line just to stymie the BNSF or because somewhere down the road they see it as once again being useful to them. I would argue a little bit of both.

3) Colorado Pacific is not stupid and stands a reasonable chance of succeeding. While it is easy to dismiss the Colorado Pacific folks as "brash New Yorkers who know nothing about the railroad business", I would see that as a very short sighted view that is not really based in reality. I would argue that they are successful business people that are looking at this from a big picture perspective and from that perspective, what they are trying to do makes sense.
The 120 miles of the Towner line in Colorado passes through land that is mostly agricultural, and mostly in grain production. Every town on the line has a grain elevator, all of which were active shippers until the railroad (UP and then A&K) drove them away. The grain elevators along the line in western Kansas are still active shippers.
According to the USDA, over 50% of us wheat production is exported and over 63% of that goes through West Coast ports. According to the Colorado Wheat Association, production in eastern Colorado averages 34.3 bushels, or one ton per acre. Assuming that a grain hopper has a net capacity of 90 tons (load limit-empty weight), it would take about 9,000 acres to fill a 100 car unit train. As best I can tell, the Colorado Pacific folks own enough land in eastern Colorado to fill 8 unit trains per year. If you assume that landowners 50 miles either side of the Towner Line would ship by rail, once the option is available at competitive rates, you have the possibility of 150 more unit trains per year. (I don’t think that this is unreasonable, rail is the most efficient way to haul grain and these producers are hauling it further now to get to a rail line).
As with most things these days, transportation is one of, if not the largest costs for grain producers. Having a railroad that wants the business and has a direct route without interchanges would be a big benefit to eastern Colorado grain producers. The commodity is there, it needs to be shipped and that is the big picture that the Colorado Pacific folks a looking at. (at least as I see it)

The Colorado Pacific folks have already proven that they have the tenacity and financial wherewithal to purchase and rehabilitate a 120 mile ling rail line (the Towner Line), including building a new interchange yard with the BNSF at NA Junction, the west end of the line. They seem to have a good relationship with the BNSF and their railroad appears to be serving an area that can generate over 15,000 carloads per year, most of which is headed for the west coast.

Are 150 unit trains per year enough to support ownership and maintenance of both the Towner and Tennessee pass Lines? I don’t know, but that sure seems like a better starting point than Rio Grande Pacific would be in by leasing a part of the Tennessee Pass line. Without the overhead traffic generated by the Towner Line, I think it would be very hard to try and survive by generating local freight traffic and passenger service.

Jason Midyette

Colorado Pacific filed two new documents with the STB on 1/8/2021 as seen in the STB Reading Room under Filings.

Filing ID 301428 and 301428.

But that is assuming that UP whipped up the RGP deal as a last minute measure to stop Colorado Pacific which doesn't line up with what I am hearing. It sounds like RGP has been working for years on this, predating any attempt by Colorado Pacific.

Wow, about twenty STB filings the last few days, from home owners near the tracks.

A lot of the text between the letters seems to be identical, so there's probably some sort of organizing group behind the filings.

The overall themes in the letters seem to be:
- "the river is pristine now and trains will destroy that"
- "trains are loud and scary, our kids will die"
- "the railroad is lying about the money numbers involved, so everything should be denied".
- "my property value will plummet"

And the Rio Grande Pacific group who is getting the lease from UP, filed to prevent Colorado Pacific (who wants to buy the line) from getting more information about the lease, calling them competitors, not fellow rail service users.

It is possible that UP wouldn't have agreed to the RGP proposal if it hadn't been for the Colorado Pacific group's initiative.

Let me respond at some length to Mr. Midyette's post of 1/9/21. But, before I start, I should make a couple of disclosures. I was pretty heavily involved in UP's dealings on the TP line during the UP-SP merger and for a number of years afterwards. But I've had nothing to do with the line since about 2005 and I've been retired since 2008. As such, I have no "inside" information on what's going on now (if I did, I wouldn't be writing this note). I'm speculating, just like everyone else.

That said, here goes. Numbers match the numbers in Mr. Midyette's note:

(1) There's no mystery about UP's reasons for retaining the TP line. UP explained them to STB, the State of Colorado and others a long time ago. Briefly, UP's original intent in the UP-SP merger was to fully abandon the TP line between Canon City (at the time, the site of a coal fired generating plant) and Gypsum near Dotsero (then as now, the site of a major industry). The reason was that, as a through route, the TP line (and the Towner line) was unnecessary in a merged UP-SP system. The through traffic could be more efficiently handled on UP's Wyoming line (not, by the way, the Moffat line - it was never UP's intent to reroute TP through traffic over the Moffat line). STB, however, only approved discontinuance, because it was concerned about the ability of the Moffat line to handle the rerouted traffic (as noted above, it was never UP's intent to reroute TP traffic to the Moffat line). Discontinuance allowed UP to stop serving the line (there was hardly any on line traffic between Canon City and Gypsum). UP was to come back to STB for full abandonment authority after showing that TP line through traffic had been successfully rerouted. UP expected to do this in a year or two.

But UP never went back to STB for full abandonment authority . The reason was UP's embarrassing and very expensive service meltdown in 1997. As a result of this, UP elected to forgo abandonment of several seemingly redundant lines which could conceivably be used for traffic in the future, however remote that might seem, (on the theory that once a line is gone, it's gone for good). As such, UP advised the Board (I think it was in 1998) that, while it had discontinued service over the TP line (as permitted by the merger decision). it was no longer seeking to abandon the line.

That leaves the RGX transaction. This was UP's sale of the Canon City - Parkdale segment to RGX, a partnership of Rock & Rail (a short line freight railroad affiliated with a large gravel pit at Parkdale) and Canon City & Royal Gorge (a really neat tourist road). The genesis of this was a merger commitment UP made to cooperate with the State of Colorado in finding a buyer for all or part of the TP line. The state turned down a proposal by an outfit calling itself the Colorado Kansas & Pacific (not the current CP) to purchase the entire TP line and the Towner line as unrealistic, but recommended the RGX transaction, which was done.

A couple of other factoids. UP did retain overhead trackage rights to operate over the RGX trackage in the event it resumed service over the TP line. This was consistent with UP's desire to retain the option of the running over the line if it ever decided to resume service over TP. Initially, UP also retained dispatching rights over the RGX line, primarily because the CTC signal system on the line didn't easily lend itself to local dispatching (there was no way FRA was going to allow elimination of the signal system with the combined RGX passenger/ freight operations and the danger of rock slides). Eventually, however, FRA agreed to allow the CTC signals to be changed to ABS with dispatching by track warrant, which allowed UP to get out of the dispatching.

2. From the standpoint of 2021. with the decline in Colorado-Utah coal traffic over the last 15 years, and the lack of any on-line traffic between Gypsum and Parkdale, my own view is that the prospects of the TP line having any value as a through route today are practically non-existent. But, apparently, that's not UP's current view. One reason, I suppose, may be the pending expiration of the Moffat Tunnel lease in 2025 (it's mentioned in Wikipedia so it's public knowledge, but that's just my own speculation.

With respect to BNSF, the STB did require UP to give BNSF trackage rights over the Moffat Tunnel route (to preserve the "central corridor" competition SP/DRGW had provided to UP). UP had recognized at the outset that STB would require something like this and so made an agreement with BNSF in advance of the merger filing. But BNSF did not seek or obtain any rights over the TP line in the merger. I think it fair to say that UP would have been delighted to give BNSF rights over TP rather than over the Moffat route. but BNSF was too smart to fall into this trap. Interestingly, ATSF had longstanding prior rights to use the TP line between Pueblo and Canon City. If BNSF had any interest in ever using the entire TP route , they would have obviously held onto these rights. Instead, they sold them to R&R around 2000 or so. So much for BNSF's interest in the line.

3. I don't have any facts to support this, but I can't help thinking that CP has ulterior motives for seeking to buy the TP line (possibly the prospect of making real estate sales in the Minturn area). As far as CP's Towner line is concerned, the Towner line was also a UP-SP merger abandonment, which was fully approved by the STB. The reality was that, while there was a lot of grain produced in the area, very little of it was being moved through elevators on the Towner line. Instead, most of it was being trucked to unit train loaders on the nearly rail lines (for example, Cheyenne Wells on the UP "KP" line) Even the grain elevators on the Towner line were trucking to the unit loaders. The only reason UP didn't fully abandon the line is because of its agreement with the State of Colorado to sell the line to a prospective operator. Eventually, the State of Colorado itself purchased the line and had CKP operate it. CKP's failure led he state to sell the line to A&K. CP then acquired it in an STB forced sale (called a "feeder line' application).

The other reason the CP proposal seems to make little economic sense is that the CP Towner line already has access to two Class I railroads on its west end - UP and BNSF, both of which reach the west coast. So, CP doesn't need TP to provide a competitive option for its Colorado grain (assuming it could even connect with BNSF from the TP line, see below). Now, maybe TP, from a map, would be a shorter route, but it would a very difficult route and would not only have to be purchased but very substantially rebuilt between Parkdale and Gypsum. Since there's no on line traffic on the line beyond Parkdale (already served by R&R), the only traffic supporting the line (and all of the purchase and upgrading expenditures) would be the Towner line grain traffic. And even if CP did this, UP is the only connecting railroad serving Gypsum - to my knowledge, BNSF has no rights on the line between Gypsum and Dotsero, so CP wouldn't get access to a second railroad on the north end. None of this makes sense - from a cost or competitive standpoint, CP would seem to be far better off simply interchanging all of its grain traffic to UP or BNSF at the west end of the Towner line. That's why I think CP's real game may be different than what they have presented. We shall see.

Once again, I want to stress that I have no inside information whatever on this matter. This is all my own speculation based on facts that are of public record.

Well that didn’t take long. Here come the Avon lawyers
https://www.vaildaily.com/news/avon-to- ... uhx1pWqxqY

I have 2 thoughts;

1. Mr Opal knows what he's talking about, and....

2. SOMETHINGS missing. There's no way that this line can return a net return on what it will cost to put it back in service AND operate trains over this mountain. I've done a tiny bit of mountain railroading on the B&O and can testify that it's no walk in the park.

Perhaps someday we'll learn what's missing???

Ross Rowland

I looked at my Bollinger/Bauer book The Moffat Road (specifically the chapter entitled The Moffat Tunnel Steal, documenting how the owners of the then-D&SL ripped off the counties in the Tunnel District for $25M in 1925 dollars, payable over 50 years). I know that Denver etc. were very afraid when they financed the tunnel of what happened with the Busk-Ivanhoe tunnel on the Colorado Midland (first the CM stopped paying rent and ran over the top again, then the entire railroad was abandoned). Not sure if they will feel they have wrung their money out of it already, but I could see the state buying the route. Bit of trivia: my great-grandfather worked building the tunnel in the 1920's, and my grandmother grew up in East Portal and went to grade school there.

I may be mistaken, but isn't Tennessee Pass capable of handling double stack trains, which I know the MT route cannot without improbably-expensive work? The Moffat Tunnel has steel reinforcing bars embedded in concrete in the roof, and so the only way to enlarge it is to lower the floor, which would require taking it out of service for months. And of course all 29 of the smaller tunnels east of there would need to be cornered. So that is one possible traffic source. I just saw that Asian imports increased dramatically in the past year and port space is at a premium, so logically there must be increased stack train traffic also.

To my knowledge, PMC is correct. The Moffat route is unable to handle doublestacks due to tunnel clearances. The TP route was able to handle doublestacks, and regularly did so when SP used the line as part of its "Central Corridor" transcontinental route. Following the UP-SP merger, the doublestack traffic went to UP's main line across Wyoming.

Let me make a brief response to Mr. Rowland's note of 1/21. Numbers match the paragraph numbers in his note:

1. I appreciate the compliment. Even my wife doesn't think I know what I'm talking about (or so she often tells me).

2. I absolutely agree with Mr. Rowland that "SOMETHINGS missing". And that "something" is pretty big. According to CP's own filing with STB, it will cost about $278 MILLION to restore the TP line to service (CP Feeder Line Application p. 16 and Crowley statement, part XI at p. 70). That's a lot of money (to put it mildly). Where's the traffic that's going to produce the money to cover these huge costs, plus the costs of operating a very difficult mountain railroad?

At least one of the two groups is likely a stalking horse for the Avon interests/ VA, etc. (someone who wants the railroad to remain shut down, track gone, the land sold etc.), I'm just not sure which one.

In response to PMC's latest note, if one of the groups (CP or RGP) is pursuing a TP reactivation as a "stalking horse" for interests opposed to rail activation, it would have to be CP. I can't imagine why UP/RGP would. If UP wanted to prevent rail reactivation, it wouldn't support a lease with RGP or anyone else. It would simply abandon the line, which it could easily do since the line has handled no traffic for over 20 years (it would be a simple "notice of exemption" filing). True, this would trigger the opportunity for someone else to purchase the line for NLV, but why would UP care if it wanted to just get rid of it? That said. I don't think CP is a "stalking horse" either. They are simply unrealistic or pursuing the line for a reason that hasn't come out.