Northwestern CO Passenger Rail (Vail, Moffat Tunnel Lease)

http://www.eaglevalleyenterprise.com/ar ... ofile=1001

The county apparently does not want to pay for it.

Eagle County commissioners are leery about paying $80,000 for a feasibility study on a proposed passenger rail service from Leadville to Dotsero.

The Rio Grande Pacific Corporation is proposing the rail service with HDR Engineering doing the feasibility study. Among other things, the study would research the viability of a “commuter and excursion services between Leadville, Vail and Dotsero with potential intermediate stations at Minturn, Avon, Eagle and Gypsum.” The plan anticipates using some of Union Pacific Railroad's out-of-service tracks.

I'll bump my own aged topic on this with a new article. It's kind of all over the place, so I'll let you all parse it:

https://www.vaildaily.com/news/ski-comm ... erwhelmed/

Ski commuter trains get another look as mountain roads are overwhelmed
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That’s nearly what happened here in Eagle County, where Union Pacific’s dormant Tennessee Pass rail line travels along the Eagle River from Dotsero in the west through Gypsum, Eagle, Edwards, Avon (where a gondola and a transit center connect to Beaver Creek), Minturn, Red Cliff and on over Tennessee Pass to Leadville. When the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads merged in 1996, Union Pacific tried to formally abandon the line but federal rail officials rejected the plan. Still, the line was shut down (the last freight trains rumbled southeast to Pueblo in 1997), and local recreational trail enthusiasts came up with a plan to make the rails-to-trails switch.
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Eagle County is unique in that it has the two major rail lines through the Colorado Rockies meeting at a community, Dotsero, where the Eagle and the Colorado rivers also come together. According to the book “A Compendium of Curious Colorado Place Names:” “Although it’s been suggested by some that this name … comes from a word in the Ute language meaning ‘something unique,’ the better theory is that the name came from a start-of-the-line marking on an old Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad map — ‘.0’ — that is, “dot-zero.”
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CDOT spokesman Bob Wilson wrote that: “We remain interested in the Tennessee Pass Line, and have identified it as a recommended corridor for consideration of future passenger rail service, although this identification will be in the 2023 Rail Plan update (and a vision white paper) that haven’t been published yet. … The lease of the Moffat Tunnel likely has no impact on the potential for the UP or other partners to re-open the Tennessee Pass subdivision, but may be a component of the negotiations as we look forward.”
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Former Vail Mayor Kim Langmaid, founder of the Walking Mountains Science Center in Avon, advocates for new electric trains on the tracks between the Eagle County Airport and Vail (a few new miles would have to be added east from Dowd Junction to the Vail Transportation Center in the I-70 median). Langmaid recently told RealVail.com: “I’ve always thought that bringing back the trains specifically for commuters and to support tourism would be a great move for us. All of the communities involved in the Climate Action Collaborative want to reduce the number of vehicles on the road. The train could be a great solution.”
...

Who has the money? To quote a friend, “No bucks, no Buck Rodgers.”

According to daughter I-70 is often a skier's nightmare. Any rail service would just enable a few persons to avoid I-70. To make a real dent in I-70 traffic would take a 20 car train of 18 - 68 passenger coaches and a couple of lounge snack cars. Where would equipment come from? If Amtrak becomes dumb enough to retire Amfleets is the only way coaches of that number would become available. Also another train set for the Tennessee pass route??

Then at least 3 - 4 locos for a train set with at least 2 with operatable HEP maybe all locos with HEP. And AC traction probably set up as Alaska RR does their 6 axel units.

There’s plenty of equipment around the country available for winter lease. There are also plenty of high horsepower locomotives available for lease. Finally, there are more than a few HEP generator cars now.

Seasonal lease is the win-win idea.