by Balerion
I thought it would be worthwhile to have a thread to keep track of the steady drumbeat of chatter in Colorado about a Front Range route, even if it's not very likely to come to fruition. The city of Pueblo in particular has been advocating for some sort of unspecified connection to the Southwest Chief in La Junta and/or a full Front Range route to the north. Running some sort of dinky or splitting off a Southwest Chief car in La Junta for Pueblo service seems excessively complicated for a +1 stop route that serves a market that already has a Thruway bus to both the SWC and the California Zephyr. If any service expansion ever occurs, a route up to Denver or Fort Collins makes more sense.
Colorado's legislature authorized the expansion of the Southwest Chief Commission:
Colorado's legislature authorized the expansion of the Southwest Chief Commission:
The new commission must continue to preserve the existing Amtrak Southwest Chief rail line service, but its new mission is to "facilitate the future of a Front Range passenger rail system that provides ... service in and along the Interstate 25 corridor."How much investment would be needed to run this sort of service alongside the usual freight traffic?
The bill says that such a system "may include stops at the cities of Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, Boulder, Denver, Castle Rock, Colorado Springs and Pueblo."