The Glenwood Springs, CO trip to Denver is now slower!

[5280 Guy]

I used to book a sleeper for the Denver-Glenwood Spring trip and always thought it was really slow. The train used to leave GSC at around 12:20 PM and roll into Denver by around 5:45 or so. Now it leaves there at 11:42 AM and arrives at 6:27 PM, roughly 6 hours and 45 minutes. Wow. You can drive it in half that amount of time.
From now on that's what I will do.
Any ideas on why they extended the travel time?

 

[niemi24s]

Any ideas on why they extended the travel time?

Perhaps to discourage short sleeper trips in order to make room for those booking longer trips?

 

[Palmland]

From now on that's what I will do.
Any ideas on why they extended the travel time?

Maybe it’s the result of negotiations with UP. But hard to believe with minimal freight traffic they receive delays for that reason.

But this is not a new change. This RPA schedule updated in May shows the ‘new’ times. And looking at the last printed timetable from 2016 the scheduled times weren’t much different - GSC 12:10, DEN 6:38 about 20 min faster.

 

[Cal]

Maybe it’s the result of negotiations with UP. But hard to believe with minimal freight traffic they receive delays for that reason.

They do have to share the tracks with the Rocky Mountaineer now too. On the Zephyr last month we did have to stop for freight (we were also a few hours behind our slot)