Southwest Chief Re-Route?

[Ryan]

Sunset East after Katrina.

 

[FriskyFL]

Sunset East after Katrina.

"Suspended" indefinitely, not "cancelled". Clearly not the same. :wacko:

 

[Cooley47]

Just curious if anything has changed. I see there's 11 pages of talking, not sure if I can read through all of it. I'll be taking the Southwest Chief this December. Anything new I should expect?

 

[jebr]

The Pioneer and Desert Wind were cancelled in 1997. Three Rivers was after that, though, in 2005.

 

[zephyr17]

Nothing will have changed by this December, except perhaps additional slow orders. The short story is BNSF doesn't use the line at all between Lamy and La Junta, and it is only used for local freight for most of the length between La Junta and Newton. BNSF doesn't want to maintain the section railroad west of La Junta at all, and only wants to maintain the line east of La Junta as basically a low speed freight lead. The track is 1940's era stick rail and is at the end of its useful life. Past it really. If the line is to be kept and maintainted to passenger standards, Amtrak/states/somebody is going to have to step up and pay the maintenance.

The decision to stay (and pay) on the current line has to be made in 2014, so the facilities can be prepared to reroute to the Transcon through Amarillo by 2016, apparently when the current contracts expire.

 

[Cooley47]

Guess I picked the right time for my trip then

 

[greatcats]

On my road trip the other day back from Michigan and Chicago, we drove into La Junta, where we had reserved a motel. I went into the station to say hello to the conductor, Billy Ray Pearson, who was about to start his trip to Dodge City. ( He had been my conductor in both directions on my trip in May. ) He said BNSF is working in western Kansas to bring the track speed back up. This may well be for freight purposes. ( A long coal train pulled in westbound, which I had seen while we drove through Lamar. ) I said to him I thought they wanted to abandon Raton Pass. Not necessarily, he said - in his view BNSF is trying to work out an agreement with Amtrak over that. That last statement may be rather vague, but the first one says something. Some of the other Amtrak people I have spoken with seem rather unconcerned and the matter of the possible re-route does not seem like a big issue to them.

The eastbound #4 was only slightly late and most everything seemed rather normal, with perhaps a half dozen boarding the train. Not sure how many may have gotten off. I just arrived home, having left Santa Fe this morning. I am fine after the high speed drive from Chicago, but my friend is exhausted...and I did most of the driving! ( I'm the one who drove to Newfoundland last year. )

Our next trip will be in Octoboer to the GATHERING! Train from Flagstaff, to LA, to Portland, to Seattle, to Chicago, GATHERING,

and back to Flagstaff.

 

[henryj]

On my road trip the other day back from Michigan and Chicago, we drove into La Junta, where we had reserved a motel. I went into the station to say hello to the conductor, Billy Ray Pearson, who was about to start his trip to Dodge City. ( He had been my conductor in both directions on my trip in May. ) He said BNSF is working in western Kansas to bring the track speed back up. This may well be for freight purposes. ( A long coal train pulled in westbound, which I had seen while we drove through Lamar. ) I said to him I thought they wanted to abandon Raton Pass. Not necessarily, he said - in his view BNSF is trying to work out an agreement with Amtrak over that. That last statement may be rather vague, but the first one says something. Some of the other Amtrak people I have spoken with seem rather unconcerned and the matter of the possible re-route does not seem like a big issue to them. The eastbound #4 was only slightly late and most everything seemed rather normal, with perhaps a half dozen boarding the train. Not sure how many may have gotten off. I just arrived home, having left Santa Fe this morning. I am fine after the high speed drive from Chicago, but my friend is exhausted...and I did most of the driving! ( I'm the one who drove to Newfoundland last year. ) Our next trip will be in Octoboer to the GATHERING! Train from Flagstaff, to LA, to Portland, to Seattle, to Chicago, GATHERING, and back to Flagstaff.

This actually makes sense. BNSF doesn't really want the SWC on it's transcon......and it still considers Raton a backup route, maybe. If they could get some 'Obama' money to do some relocations to eliminate the 3% grade it would all work out. Also, there is always the possibility that they will need eastern Kansas for some coal trains and perhaps Raton too. Interesting perspective. Thanks.

 

[George Harris]

3% is not a problem for a passenger train. Where the money needs to be spent is in replacement of the worn out rail. I have not seen it but I would suspect that it looks much like the Illinois Central's Grenada District did before the City of New Orleans was moved to the Yazoo District. That is, heavily worn 112 lb rail, tie condition just barely to the track class. The rail was worn to the point that the tops of the joint bars on the gauge side were shiny from wheel flange contact. In other words, it is time for a major rail relay if the line is to continue in service at all. The ICRR decided the cost of keeping the Grenada District up to decent condition for passenger service or even medium or low speed freight service was not worth it.

 

[amtkstn]

The only part of the 3 percent grade that the Chief has is it takes three locomotives to get the short eight train over the pass. On the.new route it would only need two.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

...He said BNSF is working in western Kansas to bring the track speed back up. This may well be for freight purposes. ( A long coal train pulled in westbound, which I had seen while we drove through Lamar. ) I said to him I thought they wanted to abandon Raton Pass. Not necessarily, he said - in his view BNSF is trying to work out an agreement with Amtrak over that. That last statement may be rather vague, but the first one says something.

This.

Just a few short years ago everyone was on the 'say goodbye to the Devil's Lake sub' bandwagon.

Just saying, as I've been saying, that there is a history (which does tend to repeat itself) of BNSF's behavior in a similar situation, and that had a happy ending - at least for those of us who do not live along the possible reroute.

 

[Ryan]

The only part of the 3 percent grade that the Chief has is it takes three locomotives to get the short eight train over the pass. On the.new route it would only need two.

It had 2 when I took it over the pass with no issues.

 

[Nathanael]

3% is not a problem for a passenger train. Where the money needs to be spent is in replacement of the worn out rail.

The obsolete signals are also a problem. And an expensive problem.
Personally, I know the Raton Pass route is scenic, but I would rather stop in Wichita and Amarillo.

 

[Nathanael]

Oh -- the Kansas track has a lot of potential for trains coming south from Denver, so I am not surprised to see it upgraded. The Raton Pass track itself, well, it's really only valuable for Colorado-New Mexico traffic. I haven't seen any evidence that freight traffic from Colorado to New Mexico is picking up, though someone may enlighten me. There were state plans to provide passenger service over that route, but this all ended with the change of governor in New Mexico.

I would not be surprised if the final decision was made after the results of the November 2014 general election in New Mexico.

 

[George Harris]

3% is not a problem for a passenger train. Where the money needs to be spent is in replacement of the worn out rail.

The obsolete signals are also a problem. And an expensive problem.
Personally, I know the Raton Pass route is scenic, but I would rather stop in Wichita and Amarillo.

Very True about the signals!

 

[George Harris]

Oh -- the Kansas track has a lot of potential for trains coming south from Denver, so I am not surprised to see it upgraded. The Raton Pass track itself, well, it's really only valuable for Colorado-New Mexico traffic. I haven't seen any evidence that freight traffic from Colorado to New Mexico is picking up, though someone may enlighten me. There were state plans to provide passenger service over that route, but this all ended with the change of governor in New Mexico.
I would not be surprised if the final decision was made after the results of the November 2014 general election in New Mexico.

Reality may have set in. The northern part Denver to Pueblo is very congested with freight traffic. The entire route is long and crooked compared to the highway distance. Any Albuquerque to Denver passenger service would be excruciatingly slow without major expenditures on the railroad.

 

[printman2000]

Personally, I know the Raton Pass route is scenic, but I would rather stop in Wichita and Amarillo.

Yeah, me too!

 

[TVRM610]

Raton Pass is just cool for so many reasons...

1. Highest point on the Santa Fe Railroad

2. Current Steepest grade on a mainline railroad

3. Only mainline RR using operating semaphores.

I mean it's just cool. Would be great if the line remains (even though the semaphores and maybe even the grade could leave us...).

 

[henryj]

Oh -- the Kansas track has a lot of potential for trains coming south from Denver, so I am not surprised to see it upgraded. The Raton Pass track itself, well, it's really only valuable for Colorado-New Mexico traffic. I haven't seen any evidence that freight traffic from Colorado to New Mexico is picking up, though someone may enlighten me. There were state plans to provide passenger service over that route, but this all ended with the change of governor in New Mexico.
I would not be surprised if the final decision was made after the results of the November 2014 general election in New Mexico.

Reality may have set in. The northern part Denver to Pueblo is very congested with freight traffic. The entire route is long and crooked compared to the highway distance. Any Albuquerque to Denver passenger service would be excruciatingly slow without major expenditures on the railroad.

MapQuest list the driving time at around 7 1/2hrs depending on traffic. Greyhound makes the run in 8hrs 10min. By rail it is 479 miles and based on current SWC times from Trinidad and old timetables for the front range, you are looking at 10 to 11hrs.

 

[railiner]

How about this?....the BNSF save the Raton Pass route, and save money by abandoning the old Colorado and Southern line from either Pueblo or just from Trinidad down to Amarillo? They would still have the old Santa Fe line from LaJunta via Las Animas Jct. to Amarillo.......or vice versa....I don't think they need two lines between Amarillo and Colorado...

 

[henryj]

How about this?....the BNSF save the Raton Pass route, and save money by abandoning the old Colorado and Southern line from either Pueblo or just from Trinidad down to Amarillo? They would still have the old Santa Fe line from LaJunta via Las Animas Jct. to Amarillo.......or vice versa....I don't think they need two lines between Amarillo and Colorado...

They use the two lines directionally. Empty coal trains on the C&S and other northbounds and loaded coal on the ATSF and other southbounds. They don't need the Raton line for anything at all. It was the old passenger main when they ran a bunch of passenger trains. Now it is only the SWC once a day. If the states don't want the Raton line and BNSF doesn't want to preserve it as back up or future traffic then it's toast. My thoughts are that Colorado will someday want to run commuter stuff as far as Pueblo maybe. But not Raton. And NM has no use for it either.

 

[user 1215]

Oh -- the Kansas track has a lot of potential for trains coming south from Denver, so I am not surprised to see it upgraded. The Raton Pass track itself, well, it's really only valuable for Colorado-New Mexico traffic. I haven't seen any evidence that freight traffic from Colorado to New Mexico is picking up, though someone may enlighten me. There were state plans to provide passenger service over that route, but this all ended with the change of governor in New Mexico.
I would not be surprised if the final decision was made after the results of the November 2014 general election in New Mexico.

The reason it all changed with the change of governor was because Richardson made some really lousy investments during his tenure. He spent a LOT of taxpayer money that just vaporized. He initially bought the line from Belen through Trinidad just so that he could have the stretch between Belen and Lamy for the Railrunner.

The citizens are a bit weary of spending money - even though the Railrunner appears to be at least a political success, if not a financial boondoggle. But to ask them to support millions for a twice a day train between ABQ and Raton is going to be asking a lot. I don't think that a new governor in 2014 is going to zig the other way too far.

 

[Nathanael]

The Lamy to Trinidad line was cheap at the price, and due to breach of contract, the incoming governor ended up having to bribe BNSF with tax breaks in order to get the "earnest money" back. Bleah.

But even with a different governor, I'm sure NM would not want to actually spend money to maintain the line just for two a day. The question is whether a different governor would be trying to reopen Denver-Albuquerque, for which the line actually is useful. Richardson was trying to talk to the Colorado government about that.

 

[Ispolkom]

...He said BNSF is working in western Kansas to bring the track speed back up. This may well be for freight purposes. ( A long coal train pulled in westbound, which I had seen while we drove through Lamar. ) I said to him I thought they wanted to abandon Raton Pass. Not necessarily, he said - in his view BNSF is trying to work out an agreement with Amtrak over that. That last statement may be rather vague, but the first one says something.

This.

Just a few short years ago everyone was on the 'say goodbye to the Devil's Lake sub' bandwagon.

Just saying, as I've been saying, that there is a history (which does tend to repeat itself) of BNSF's behavior in a similar situation, and that had a happy ending - at least for those of us who do not live along the possible reroute.

You just need to discover oil in the region. That's what changed BNSF's mind on the Devils Lake sub (that and other people paying for 2/3 of the cost of fixing Churchs Ferry). Wasn't the discovery of oil in the Farmington area, and the resulting shipments of pipes and other drilling equipment a big reason that the D&RG narrow-gauge railroad hung on into the 1960s?

 

[railiner]

How about this?....the BNSF save the Raton Pass route, and save money by abandoning the old Colorado and Southern line from either Pueblo or just from Trinidad down to Amarillo? They would still have the old Santa Fe line from LaJunta via Las Animas Jct. to Amarillo.......or vice versa....I don't think they need two lines between Amarillo and Colorado...

They use the two lines directionally. Empty coal trains on the C&S and other northbounds and loaded coal on the ATSF and other southbounds. They don't need the Raton line for anything at all. It was the old passenger main when they ran a bunch of passenger trains. Now it is only the SWC once a day. If the states don't want the Raton line and BNSF doesn't want to preserve it as back up or future traffic then it's toast. My thoughts are that Colorado will someday want to run commuter stuff as far as Pueblo maybe. But not Raton. And NM has no use for it either.

It would seem to me that it would be a lot cheaper to add longer sidings, or double track where necessary, one of the lines, rather than maintain two and pay property taxes to boot.....