Tennessee Pass - 18 Years Later - Trains Magazine
I'm putting together a proposal for a commuter train service along the Tennessee Pass route using DMU equipment. Hopefully UP will be willing to lease the tracks for this.
I will post the full proposal in a few weeks.
Here is a summary:
Proposal for a Tourist-Commuter Railroad
over Tennessee Pass from Salida to Eagle, Colorado
By Christof Stork
Summary:
This route is 120 miles through a very scenic mountainous area. It serves two separate tourist valleys that combined see high winter and summer tourism allowing strong year round revenue. New light weight diesel multiple unit rail equipment (DMUs) provide the key capabilities of speed, comfort, and low operating costs.
The main challenges for this railroad are acquiring track rights from Union Pacific, startup funds for purchasing the DMUs and repairing tracks, maintaining the tracks, safe operation for the grade and winter weather, and marketing the destinations along the route.
This railroad is likely to be viable for these reasons:
1) Eagle County attracts 550,000 winter tourists who stay on average 6 days and spend on average $2000 each. The railroad would provide a unique winter mountain experience from Eagle County.
2) The Salida/Buena Vista area attracts ~400,000 summer tourists a year. Of these, 200,000 spend on average $120 each for raft trips and $50 each for train trips.
3) The entire route along Tennessee Pass and the Upper Arkansas River valley is very scenic. The recent designation of Brown’s Canyon as a National Monument provides a lead marketing carrot.
4) The tracks and right of way are generally high quality.
5) The train would be different from other tourist railroads in that it provides attractive destinations in addition to a scenic journey. The train would connect the unique mountain towns of Eagle, Wolcott, Edwards, Avon, Minturn, Redcliff, Leadville, Granite, Buena Vista, and Salida. The most attractive of these towns are Avon, Minturn, Redcliff, Buena Vista, and Salida. There would be intermediate stops to access popular recreational locations for hiking, biking, and rafting (Camp Hale, Tennessee Pass, several river stops, 4 mile, Brown’s Canyon).
6) New light weight multiple unit rail equipment (DMUs) provide the key extra capabilities of speed, comfort, and low operating costs. This equipment is proven in the mountain grade and weather challenges of Norway and Switzerland.
7) The nearby Royal Gorge Railroad and Leadville Railroad show there is demand for a tourist railroad.
8) A train would be compatible with existing summer & winter mountain recreation and would diversify tourist options.
9) The train will be able to charge more per ride and distance than typical subsidized urban commuter railroads because of the tourist dimension.
10) A train that provides commuting as well as scenic tours provides much community benefit and is the best use of the valuable tracks. Local and state governments are likely to support this combined tourist/commuter railroad.
Why not run a pure tourist or historical railroad model that most other Colorado passenger railroads use? Why use modern rail equipment suitable for commuters? Because the distances are too great, several stretches of the track are not along the scenic river, the commuting potential is significant, and the comfort of the modern equipment is a dramatic improvement over historical rail equipment. Most historic trains travel at 10-15mph. Salida-Eagle is 120 miles. Modern DMU rail equipment can go 60 mph, can accelerate quickly, and provides additional level of safety useful on the 1.4-3.0% maximum grade (~10hp/ton). We want to do several trips a day with a train rather than one long slow trip. The train can go slower in the scenic stretches, but should go fast (hopefully approaching 60 mph) along several long straight sections away from the river. The modern trains have amenities of large windows, good climate control, comfortable seats, much reduced vibration, and modern toilets.
