Colorados Rail Potential

Frount Range Passenger Rail
The Colorado Zephyr
More Ski Trains
Better Busses

[@planetcrypto8662]

Very thoughtful and informative. One suggestion? Perhaps turn down the background music just a bit. It's hard sometimes to focus on your voice while it's playing.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

I will upload a clean version

[@beckiverson1531]

@@OffGridUrbanist thank you

[@Sacto1654]

I think they should look at an electrified line from Colorado Springs north to Boulder running Stadler KISS train sets with speeds as high as 200 km/h (124 mph).

[@PaperAirplaneFactory]

I'd recommend looking at Stadler FLIRT DMU train sets, as they are interoperable with freight rights of way in the US per the FRA. They are quieter, accelerate quickly and tackle slightly steeper grades as the traction motors are identical to the EMU versions. Not as heavy as Amtrak units you refer to at 9:27 Assembled in Salt Lake City. There are thousands in operation around the world. Many operate without any spares with 99% up time.

[@Randomgen77]

My favorite example/idea for Bustang working with an expanded rail system is actually that eastern FRR route you mentioned (Denver to Greeley). Greeley itself is set to grow, but the US 85 corridor between Greeley and the Denver Metro won't necessarily be dense enough for a rail line. That said, it's a pain to tell all of Greeley to either drive out straight west to Loveland for FRR transport or take the Express Arrow bus that doesn't even run every week day. At the same time, FRR would obviate some (or, with enough frequency, all) of the demand for Bustang North, freeing up Bustang resources. Bustang down US 85 would thread the needle perfectly: it has the flexibility to ramp up service as population growth and adoption allow. It could stop in Brighton to augment the RTD Brighton-Denver Express (except going to Union Station instead of Civic Center). You could even benefit the rural Weld county towns (La Salle, Platteville, et al.) along the way, though probably needing some sort of reservation system to start since demand would be low.

[@WyoMedic540]

The California Zephyr doesn’t enter Kansas. It goes into Nebraska.

[@JasonTaylor-po5xc]

From my perspective, there are two main priorities with passenger rail in Colorado - first, a high speed rail system that connects all or most of the front range cities - at least Ft Colins to Colorado Springs, but ideally down to Pueblo. Second - passenger rail out to the main ski resorts with regular (hourly) service from Summit County to Denver - of course, ideally out to Beaver Creek. Summit County already has a free bus service that connects the main ski resorts - although it can be a pain to navigate with ski equipment. I think the idea is to get as much traffic off I-70 as possible. Since most ski resorts turn into summer playgrounds - I could see a reduced train service even in summer. The main issue with the Winter Park Express train is that it is only once a day and only to one ski resort. Someone like me in the Springs, just would not bother.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

The I-70 mess is a tricky problem. There is no option for a traditional rail alignment. Any service there will require extensive elevated sections and tunneling $$$. When they built I-70 trains were not a consideration. Only cars. It’s a victim of its own success. Western slop projects have the ability to reduce demand for through traffic. Getting commercial truck through traffic off of I-70 and onto rail as a bypass is likely the most realistic and feasible option in the short term. Roll on roll off service from Grand Junction to Denver will make a big dent in traffic numbers and accident frequency. It will be slower for the truckers and they will complain. Staging in Grand Junction or Denver respectively and loading 50-100 trucks on a train at a time will be a logistical challenge. Austria dose this. It can be done.

[@JasonTaylor-po5xc]

@@OffGridUrbanist The building of I-70 alone was an engineering marvel - especially in Glenwood Canyon. While the need for tunnels might be the biggest physical challenge, I think it is the political climate and desire that would doom anything like this. Japan has high speed rail and it is a mountainous country. The only reason the Interstate system got done was because it was tied to the military during the Cold War.

[@mrvwbug4423]

The main challenge is going to be building rail routes without a bunch of twists and turns through the mountains. If the train is trundling along at 30mph it's not going to be time competitive even with I-70 traffic factored in. Rehabbing some existing lines like Tennesee Pass and the line up to Craig make sense. Building a rail corridor next to I-70 would be a challenge, you would need to look into something like high speed metro type trains to handle the curves and grades of that corridor without traveling at a crawl. The existing route used by Amtrak is already quite slow, it takes 7 hours to go from Denver to GJ on Amtrak, twice as long as driving. Rail service connecting most of the major ski resorts to Denver with fast and frequent service would be a godsend for relieving I-70 traffic. Narrow gauge mountain trains ala Switzerland probably wouldn't work in the San Juans, the San Juans alone are larger than all of Switzerland.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@mrvwbug4423 I-70 certainly is a high priority to be fixed. But without tens of billions of dollars to throw at a project the short term goal is to get cheaper lines with strong ridership potential up and running. Then cite their success as a justification to attempt a I-70 project. Local service on the Steamboat line will be far more important than from Denver to Steamboat. We’re trying to helping out the workers here. Same thing on the Eagle County portion of the Tennessee Pass. These are short car competitive trips that will make a big difference. Make rail popular again. Get the states attention. Then fix I 70.

[@qjtvaddict]

Maglev high speed it is or tunnel and have KC to Colorado ski areas HSR in addition to these local lines may as well have these ski trains be GoA4 rapid metro (regional rail)

[@qjtvaddict]

@@OffGridUrbanistslow service is not going to get strong ridership. Although extending the G line to Leadville can work or granby with a feeder line elsewhere

[@qjtvaddict]

@@OffGridUrbanistlocal service you know what that’s a great idea now you created demand for HSR 😅

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@qjtvaddict Trying to figure out what you were saying here. But yes I am looking at this from a local level. Work with what we have. Make people think about rail as a viable transit option again. As much as I would like to be Switzerland and have real money to develop high speed base tunnels through our mountains… but you need to start somewhere. We have viable City pairs and traffic patterns with existing rail between them. High speed rail needs local service to work. Local service can work without high-speed rail. But it does benefit from a connection to it. The future front range passenger rail project is going to be higher speed rail at best.

[@Freshkale1]

Great video, thanks for putting together. Would love to see a video on the old i70 AGS monorail project. Subscribed

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@Freshkale1 I do plan on addressing the I 70 conundrum. I’m aware of the old AGS project. Whatever happens there probably won’t be a monorail or elevated system. It would be an adjacent but not parallel route utilizing more tunnels and agreeable topography . We don’t have to follow the I70 route exactly outside of Denver to achieve the same goal. The importance is to hit the ski towns.

[@PaperAirplaneFactory]

Had a great time hiking around west of the collegiate peaks /Salida with old narrow gage lines and some old ghost towns

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@PaperAirplaneFactory what happened to Colorado’s Narrow gauge lines in the 50s and 60s was a tragedy. So much was lost. I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to have that level of inner connection with narrow gauge. If I had the money to outright buy the Tennessee pass I would convert it to duel gauge and build the longest narrow gauge heritage rail line in the world. While also running passenger service with modern equipment as well.

[@PaperAirplaneFactory]

@@OffGridUrbanist i wonder if Stadler trainsets built in Salt Lake City, Utah or Japanese narrow gauge stuff built by Kawasaki in Lincoln, Nebraska could modernize narrow gauge in CO and bring it back. RIP the awesome arrow gage between Manitou Springs and Woodland Park. You can still see the tunnels and level embankment from HW 24

[@PaperAirplaneFactory]

"You can’t judge the demand for a bridge, based on how many people swim across the river" great quote

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@PaperAirplaneFactory it’s not originally mine. But it fits most transit projects well. It’s the status quo of car dependency reinforcing itself. The Equivalent of citing itself as a source. Paying no attention to how the federal highway‘s act gave the auto manufactures an incredibly unfair advantage over the railroads.

[@beckiverson1531]

Very good video!

[@TheBruceGday]

There used to be a line from Cotopaxi to Westcliffe. The rail grade still exists.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

It went from Texas Creek to Westcliffe. I have a little short going over that on the channel. Crazy bridge crazy grade. As much as I would love to have that line rebuilt it probably won’t happen. In future Tennessee Pass videos I will advocate for a station at Cotopaxi. Combined with a connecting bus service that reaches out to Westcliffe. Westcliffe has a pretty strong red community. So they will probably scoff at the idea of public transit. But I would at least propose an option.

[@00Zy99]

An excellent start. But I would make a couple of additions. 1) Extend from South Fork to Creede. It's just an easy bit of low-hanging fruit. 2) Run a line from Salida through Alamosa to Antonito. In combination with the I-70 corridor (to be discussed later), this provides a reasonably direct route, with potential for a future extension to Santa Fe (and further on towards Albuquerque and eventually El Paso). 3) Instead of buses, re-open the narrow gauge from Antonito through Durango and Telluride all the up to Montrose (meeting an extended branch line from Grand Junction). Much of the right of way is still there. Where it isn't, the old benefits of sharper curves and tighter clearances come back into play. And modern narrow gauge MUs used in Switzerland are compact enough to operate on city streets without being excessively intrusive. Old timetables and modern technology prove that it can be time-competitive. You would have to plan around the tourist operations, but that should not prove too difficult. 4) The line via Gunnison may be underwater, but I wouldn't call it "forever", looking at the dam removals occurring in Washington and elsewhere. Hydropower can be replaced with geothermal. And water can be supplied through recycling and improved efficiency. So, as the song goes-"Never say Never". After all, who would have thought that a Big Boy would run again? Or that the Welsh 2' lines would be making such a comeback? In 1970, they said that the tracks were impassible, and no train would ever run again over Cumbres Pass. And now, even the Georgetown Loop and its High Bridge are in service. 5) An option for the I-70 corridor would seem to be tunneling under Argentine Pass from roughly Thurman Gulch to Georgetown. This would be a 12 mile tunnel. Long, yes. But not THAT long. Roughly equivalent in length to the Simplon Tunnel. It would need to be electrified, of course, but given the grades on the rest of the line, electrification would probably be necessary anyways. 6) Other lines would be a route over Shrine Pass from Vail to Copper Mountain and from Parkdale to Frisco via Guffey, Fairplay, and Breckenridge. Aside from possibly reopening the Colorado Midland from Colorado Springs to Buena Vista (even I can't REALLY justify Hagerman Pass), that would pretty much complete statewide coverage in the mountains, which is the hard part. Providing more extensive service in the East is easy (relatively speaking), and I would run a much larger network North out of Denver.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

1) If South Fork ever gets service again, which is a big if, then Creede will likely be an easy addition. The rail is still in the ground to just outside of Creede. Good opportunities for tourist train services that could double as useful transit (which is a point for another video). South Fork is mostly meant to serve Pagosa and Durango via a bus over Wolf Creek Pass. This would provide a link to the Front Range Passenger Service via the Colorado Pacific and San Luis Valley RR and La Veta Pass. This sounds farfetched for some, but remember that the alternative is a bus to Grand Junction through some of the roughest terrain that Colorado has to offer. For example, Durango to GJ is 4.5 hours (if you don’t take the Red Mountain Pass, which not even the Bustang messes with). This requires a detour through Utah. Durango to Walsenburg is 4 hours 10 min. So, if your end goal is Denver, it makes sense for a bus service or Bus-Rail service from Durango to Walsenburg if The FRC ever gets up and running. I am in favor of shorter higher frequency bus routes that feed rail services. Thus a bus making laps between South Fork and Durango provides better frequency with fewer drivers and buses than Durango to Walsenburg. 2) I appreciate the thought, Poncha Pass and Marshall pass are near and dear to my heart. While the old narrow gauge grade is mostly intact in the San Luis valley, the Arkansas side of the Poncha pass has 285 running over part of the old grade and the Monarch spur has long since been built over. It could be done as there are not that many structures directly on top of it, but the private land it crosses over makes it a non-starter. 3) Same as before, it would be easier to build a time machine and go back to change some decisions than to reconnect these sections of NG. Chama to Durango would be the most feasible, but still unlikely. It would be a dream to see Telluride and Durango be reconnected. They still have their old station, but the ROW in Telluride has millionaire and billionaire homes built on it. The station would need to be moved to the western side of town. 4) I’m not sure how the ecologists would weigh in on draining blue mesa, especially given the tricky Colorado river situation and those dependent upon its water. Which is a whole can of worms. California and Nevada expect everyone else to have their interests in mind when managing head waters. Personally I would love to see the Narrow Gauge Rails re-laid through the Black Canyon. That would Give the D&S a run for its money. 5) I-70 has painted itself into a corner. It will take some out of the box thinking if we ever want to tackle that problem. I say let the car brains cook, its only a matter of time until they realize that betting the country on highways was an asinine proposition. The solution will be expensive and will require major public support. 6) Same as before, so much of the ROW has been developed. The sad thing about the mountains is that there was really only one feasible route for rail. The ROW has either been built over or paved over. I really want that time machine. I would shred the federal highways act. We are lucky we still have the Tennessee Pass. It should be dead to rights. We are trying to do what we can with what we have. Lets just hope that future leaders don’t just answer to Detroit, Elon, The Car Status Quo, and what is politicly easy.

[@scwillis4304]

@@OffGridUrbanist Creede forced abandonment of the last mile into town. They DO NOT want to be another Silverton or anything close.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@scwillis4304 those people have left town. The Creede of the the 2000s is gone. The money of the trust fund babies who wanted to “play” town has dried up.

[@doubleutubefan5]

More EFFECTIVE rail in Colorado mean less cars on the roads. That's always a good thing

[@LongmontRailway27]

Great video outlining potential regional bus and rail lines for our beautiful state! It's honestly so sad how little Colorado seems to invest in its rail/transit, considering how fantastic of a service we could and have had. We do have the Bustang, which is not a bad service at all, and like you brought up, Bustang could co-op with some kind of rail service connecting communities out of reach from rail, or just as an alternative option to the train. I do see an exciting and bright future for Colorado Rail and Transit, and I look forward to more videos of yours!!

[@doubleutubefan5]

The Tennessee pass has been in heated debate with Union Pacific for years. I fully believe that if the Rio Grande railroad was able to survive into today, that the pass would still be open and being run.

[@thomasedwards2754]

Good day, wow, the northern front range corridor from Denver to Cheyenne Wyoming. Yes, Cheyenne Wyoming, would be better using the Union Pacific line through Greeley. Greeley would be better than going on Burlington Northern and the Santa Fe through Fort Collins. Greeley UP would be faster and safer service with more people useing it than the BNSF route. You even talk about the speed. Also the UP route is safer with less road crossing. Boulder and Longmont will get RTD light rail. It would make no sense to take any passenger service pass Longmont on BNSF north range sub. This route is dangerous do to the many road crossing. Well done video just disagree with your thoughts on the northern front range.

[@greaterdenvertransit]

Hey there! Love these ideas - and would love to talk with you more about them! While we are mainly focused on RTD and front range transit advocacy, we are partnering with ColoRail on advocating for Mountain Rail (CDOT’s Denver to Craig service) and other Western Rail schemes that have a lot of overlap with your ideas. Would love to get in contact!

[@OffGridUrbanist]

I’m up for it! Reach out at [e-mail]

[@greaterdenvertransit]

@@OffGridUrbanist awesome, just shot you an email!

[@weedrd]

great video, thanks for your effort!

[@PaperAirplaneFactory]

working on a very similar project the last couple years in Nebraska. A skeleton system where bus routes can branch off. We should collab on an interstate route to serve the east. Maybe with something to the black hills.

[@ZeektheGeek5996]

a drgw little joe is cool

[@doubleutubefan5]

Drgw had something close to that with that one german design i cant remember the designation of

[@TheBruceGday]

The purple line west and south from Denver to Leadville is not rails on the ground. That hasn’t been true since the 1930s and 1940s. There is grade, but not rails. Also part of that, went over Boreas Pass, farther south, then back to Breckenridge and Dillon, not over Loveland Pass.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@TheBruceGday that line is referring to the AGS project or any future attempt. Most of what is in this video is in the ground. But not that. Included it because everyone wants an I70 solution

[@DougGrinbergs]

Interesting content but had to bail because of distracting background music 😕

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@DougGrinbergs checkout the other version on my channel. No music

[@JurgenADV]

Would love to see a re-release without the background music.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@JurgenADV And here I was thinking that rambling on for 30 minutes straight would lose peoples attention

[@qjtvaddict]

Not gonna lie you trying to create a network here

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@qjtvaddict that’s the idea. The speed on some of these mountain lines is faster than you would think. Especially with modern light DMUs. There are places that you can get up to 79 miles an hour on the straightaways. Or humbly cruise around 50 to 60. But when everyone on I 70 is standing still in a traffic jam. Even 35 will be appetizing.

[@tigerphid9677]

If these proposed trains are so great, then the Off Grid Urbanist should get millions of like-minded thinkers nationwide to invest their own money into them and show us how well it works.

[@OffGridUrbanist]

@@tigerphid9677 I understand where you’re coming from. For some reason we have the perception in America that rail needs to make a profit. We don’t see it as a service. If I had the choice to divert my portion of tax dollars away from Highway projects to rail projects I would. Highways don’t make a profit. They are money pits. The highway system in America has reached maturity. It is time to diversify our transport portfolio not double down.