Southwest Chief

[warrenwarner]

New welded rail in Colorado and Kansas shoud be complete by now. This article was published in June or July http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2016/01/05/amtraks-southwest-chief-service-keeps-rolling-new-tracks/75670686/saying the time should be increased by 100 minutes. Does anyone know how this has affected ridership along the Southwest Cheif?

 

[niemi24s]

Thanks for the link, but from the last paragraph of the story "When the work is complete, the Southwest Chief will make its run 100 minutes faster than it does today."

 

[crabby_appleton1950]

Thanks for the link, but from the last paragraph of the story "When the work is complete, the Southwest Chief will make its run 100 minutes faster than it does today."

Is that (100 minutes faster) for the whole trip, Chicago to L.A.?

 

[Eric S]

I recently did a CHI-LAX roundtrip on the SWC and recall it still being quite rough through western KS. Because it was overnight, though, I did not note the times and locations of the roughest stretches.

I suppose one could dig through timetables in the last decade-ish to see how travel times have changed west of Newton, KS.

 

[Eric S]

Looking at old timetables, scheduled travel times between Newton KS and Trinidad CO are about 90 minutes longer now than in the early 1990s, and about 60 minutes longer than in the late 1990s. Somewhere along the way this route was downgraded from 90mph to 79mph MAS and although I want to say that was in the 1990s, I'm not positive.

An hour of travel time improvement across CO and KS is not implausible - and perhaps another significant chunk if/when improvements are completed in NM? Even if it doesn't necessarily add up to 100 minutes, that's still a substantial chunk of time.

 

[HenryK]

I'm heading out on the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Arizona early next week and will report on the timekeeping in both directions.

 

[warrenwarner]

I'm heading out on the Southwest Chief from Chicago to Arizona early next week and will report on the timekeeping in both directions.

thanks! wishing you safe travels

 

[Chas]

An article from the Pueblo Chieftain on the current Tiger grants and how more grants might used to extend service to Pueblo (and thereby Colorado Springs as well).

 

[PVD]

Pueblo and the Springs are currently served by bus connection to the SWC from Raton NM or the CZ from Denver. This would be interesting. I usually go to the Springs by CZ to Denver and drive down.

 

[Palmetto]

What's the layover and servicing facilities like in Colo Springs? Will the UP and BNSF be receptive? As has been stated elsewhere on the forum, there are quite a few details to be attended to when starting up a service. If they're going to Colo Springs they might as well go all the way up to Denver. Is Denver by rail from the south doable?

 

[Chas]

I have heard no discussion of Amtrak going to Colorado Springs, although some would like to see a Front Range rail service from Fort Collins to Denver. Pueblo has the space -- including a restored station building just waiting -- and the tracks.

Plus there is a sort of "rail culture" there: the Transportation Technology Center, the steel mill that makes rails, and another planned new railroad research center that I am sort of hazy on, but it would be near Union Depot, not out on the prairie at the TTC.

Colorado Springs residents might then have a choice of a bus to Denver for the Zephyr or a bus to Pueblo (45 min.) for the Chief.

 

[PVD]

I've driven from Denver to the Springs, there is rail, but I've always seen giant coal trains on it. I know there is a yard on the edge of the Springs, I've seen the circus train laid up there, but I don;'t know how far it goes South, or where precisely it connects near Denver. I believe there are some folks on this board who know quite a few more details.

 

[niemi24s]

This website... http://fragis.fra.dot.gov/GISFRASafety/ ...shows where the rails go, but doesn't say much about them. There was a website with more details, but I can't seem to find it (no surprise there!). Another method is to just look for tracks on Google Earth or mytopo.com.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

I've driven from Denver to the Springs, there is rail, but I've always seen giant coal trains on it. ...

From previous discussions on this board, that's my understanding of the problem: giant coal trains from the giant open pit mines in Wyoming heading down to Texas (mostly) giant power plants.

Of course, as discussed hereabouts, coal is in a giant slump for various reasons. With many fewer coal trains, it becomes much easier to schedule a couple of passenger trains.

I'm trying to keep an open mind here. The Southwest Chief badly needs more tent poles between Illinois and California. Kansas City and Albuquerque aren't enuff. A detour to Pueblo and the larger city of Colorado Springs looks appealing as a way to gain passengers to/from these "intermediate points". But as we see in this thread, if the train gets as far as Colorado Springs, why not go a few more miles to a really big city. Not sure Denver would be easy to serve from the south. They rebuilt Union Station into a multi-modal station (plenty of buses) and shopping mall, and messed up the tracks toward Colorado Springs. But solve that and now we're talking a train Pueblo-Colorado Springs-Denver, and, uh, where do we go from there?

Go back to the current route of the Southwest Chief? For riders from intermediate point to intermediate point -- say, Dodge City to Santa Fe, or Kansas City to Albuquerque -- adding Denver, even Colorado Springs, is a helluva detour. Tourists might not mind at all tho: CHI/Midwest to Flagstaff (Grand Canyon) with a detour providing a view of snow-capped 14,000 ft peaks of the Front Range, sure, why not. Lots of Grand Canyon-bound leisure travelers would want to jump off the train at Colorado Springs and spend a day to ride to the top of Pike's Peak.

Luckily, we don't need all the answers now. Moving incrementally -- first detour to Pueblo, then later extend to Colorado Springs -- gives plenty time to think it all thru.