Front Range Flooding Affects BNSF, UP

There have been widespread road closures due to flooding, including I-25 in both directions from Denver to the Wyoming state line. In my experience, any disruption that affects a road will affect a railroad to some extent, with an emphasis on proximity to the source. This holds true for this week's craziness. Greeley--I've just learned--is inundated.

Colorado's Woes Owed to Historic Rainfall

While Colorado has had occasional and rare stretches of showers and overcast skies, the rainfall this week has shattered records. In some places, over half a year's worth of rain fell in a few short days. No one I know can recall this kind of flooding ever happening here. Ever.

Erosion fascinates me. Water under pressure does amazing things. Canyons thought to form over millennia can happen within days, as witnessed on Mt. Saint Helens, given the right pressure, viscosity and debris. Dams thought secure can overtop and within minutes begin to tear open. And as witnessed this week on network TV, roads can be eaten out from under cars while people sit inside unaware and in grave danger.

Considering the weight of locomotives, cars and cargo, imagine what a pair of rails need to stay solid. Railroads are only as good as the ballast beneath them. Still, there's something else I noticed today.

Colorado's cities (red) and railroads (dashed lines). Quick and ugly map created on nationalatlas.gov
The northern half of the Front Range Urban Corridor is highlighted.

When you look at the state's railroads, perhaps the most densely developed railroad corridor is the northern Front Range, the piedmont between Denver and Wyoming, and ground zero for our disaster. Clearly, the worst place to have a flood in Colorado--as far as rail is concerned--is right there. It's development fueled the 19th and 20th century economies for Colorado and the rest of the mountain states. History runs thick. This area saw the first rail connection for Denver and the then-Territory of Colorado with the rest of the nation on the Pacific railroad. These rails served the introduction for thousands of travelers making their way to Colorado for a holiday or a new life to settle as a pioneer.

Ironically, Amtrak's Pioneer traveled the same rails, but in the opposite direction from Denver northward to Seattle until the early 90s. Since then, only the California Zephyr continues to grace Denver's presence. While Amtrak hasn't issued any information regarding the status of the daily Zephyr, both Class I railroads in Colorado have issued statements.

Class I Railroads Affected

Union Pacific issued a statement yesterday regarding the impact of the storms, indicating a likely delay of 24 hours for the affected areas including Limon, Colorado Springs, Commerce City, Rolla and Greeley.

BNSF issued a more detailed statement today regarding specific locations, saying,

The track at South Colorado Springs, Colorado is out of service due to washout. South Colorado Springs, Colorado is approximately 72 miles south of Denver, Colorado. The main track is expected to return to service later this evening, Friday, September 13, 2013.

The tracks at Boulder, Colorado and Loveland, Colorado are out of service due to multiple washouts. Boulder, Colorado is approximately 30 miles northwest of Denver, Colorado, and Loveland, Colorado is approximately 52 miles north of Denver, Colorado. No estimated return to service has been issued yet. Customers between Broomfield, Colorado, and Dixon, Colorado, will not be serviced until track is restored.

You can bet the MOW gangs are going to have a time making the weak sections solid again.

Stay dry, folks! Hopefully, we've seen the worst of it.◊

Force Of Nature: CDOT Films Georgetown, Silver Plume and The Far-famed Loop

When I was a teen, climbing 14ers was a scary but fun summer pastime. By scary, I mean that I can't recall an ascent where my life wasn't threatened in some way. On my first attempted ascent of Grays Peak, I can remember how my dad had told me that Grays was one of the easiest climbs within a few hours of Denver. A Climbing Guide to Colorado's Fourteeners by Lampert & Borneman said so. I remembered that while jammed inside the cleft of a large rock, 50 feet off the trail, wrapped in a heat reflective blanket, wondering if I'd see my dad again.

What does that have to do with the film below titled Force of Nature? Everything. On my way to our climb, the last towns I passed through were Georgetown and Silver Plume. G-town was where they'd likely bring our bodies, I reasoned. I breathed out curses on guidebook writers and, in the very next breath, prayed that lightning avoided men on the exposed sides of mountains and boys stuffed into rocks beneath them with equal disdain. It was only a couple of years after they had rebuilt the Loop in the valleys below my misadventure. Colorado's Department of Highways, a predecessor of CDOT, was consistently being dealt black eyes for it's handling of rock falls onto its roads. Rock slide mitigation is an inexact science with very real consequences for failure.

In 2012, rock slide mitigation is getting (significantly) better. Walter Borneman survived my curses to pen a 20th anniversary edition of the guide and appear in the film below. My dad came down off the mountain having tasted electricity and felt lightning in his fingers, surviving only to drag me up many more (with alarmingly variable results), and then safely retire last year, giving his last Jeep to my brother. You might even catch his own guide book out there. It probably doesn't mention his stuffing his son in a crevice under a rock ...but it should. After all, it taught his son to pray.



Few today seriously understand how unwilling highway designers were to give up their precious right of way to a railroad that no longer existed! This film is just a small token of appreciation for James Grafton Rogers, a preservationist, a lawyer, and a veteran on this Veterans Day 2012.

And Walt, sorry. Your advice was good. No hard feelings!◊

Cold Weather Can Cripple Railroads

With the temperature at 15 degrees below zero outside and the winds at 20 MPH, we had a wind chill near 42 below last week! It got me to thinking,  we all know how Colorado's snow can snarl a railroad, but what cold weather problems can railroaders face? Aside from the obvious frostbite, which can occur in as little as 5 minutes in these conditions, what else can extreme cold do to make work on a railroad even more difficult and strenuous?

Cumbres & Toltec Buses Passengers Between Chama & Cumbres

At last, there is good news from Chama! Because of the fire at the Lobato Trestle, the 40th anniversary season of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad was under a significant cloud of doubt. Now, the operational shuffle by the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad appears to be over for the time being. 

As Lobato's Replacement Is Decided, Antonito Gains An Engine The Hard Way

Whatever they do in Chama (see previous post at 11:00 PM), they'll be doing it without C&TS engine 484. The Mikado and her tender were loaded on lowboy trailers,

Coal Creek Canyon Bridge Knocked Out Of Service A Second Time

If you've ever had the feeling you were on a streak of bad luck, you and the bridge over Colorado Highway 72 at Coal Creek Canyon might have something in common. Last December, a significant derailment dropped hopper cars like toys all over the bridge and both approaches, closing the highway. Monday, May 17th, was a bit different, but it had a similar impact, with delayed motorists, re-routed freight and a Cal-Z sent through Wyoming.

6th Avenue Bridge Rollout Completed Early

6th Avenue light rail bridge rolls into place. 9News photo

The 6th Avenue Bridge Rollout has finished early. Originally scheduled for 30 hours, work was completed in 14 hours, less than half the time expected. As a result, traffic resumed it's normal flow today instead of tomorrow. Denver's 9News.com has photos of the rollout as well as video coverage.

Buffett Buys BNSF

Financial emperor Warren Buffett has been buying up BNSF shares for years, but even in the first 48 hours since the announcement, this much is known about Berkshire Hathaway's $34 Billion purchase: Buffett is betting the farm on American rail.

Buffett believes that American coal will continue to produce in the long term, carried by Rio Grande-like unit trains from western sources such as the Wyoming and Colorado coal fields. He also believes that the American economy will rebound, once again driving demand for cheap and easy imports from China and the Pacific Rim to Wal-Mart and Sears aboard BNSF container trains from Washington and California ports.

Little if any impact is expected at the operations level. In a letter to BNSFs customers, John Lanigan stated,

You will not see any changes in the weeks and months ahead. Our leadership will remain in place and focused on providing value to our customers.

BNSFs Ft. Worth, Texas-based operations will remain in Ft. Worth. Largely, this looks like a move that's behind the scenes. The funny thing about those behind-the-scenes moves, however, is that they have an uncanny way of driving long-term strategies. Is this the anticipated move that sets the "fabled" next round of mergers in action that pairs BNSF and UP with their East Coast counterparts CSX and NS? What would this mean for the plans of high speed rail? If mergers happen, they will happen in the next 12 months. That's just a hunch based off the last round in 1995-96 where Conrail was divided up between CSX and NS and BN and Santa Fe merged, forcing UP to buy Southern Pacific from Colorado's Phil Anschutz.

The Future Is Knocking

This commercial's a few months old, but folks are seeing the not-so-subtle writing on the wall about the future of transportation. If Amtrak keeps their schedule improvements up, the future may already have arrived.

Future of the Region Written In Transportation Plans

In the early days of the automobile, a state's commitment to passable roads, also known as highways, varied. The difference of commitment could be so stark at times that a car that passed the border from one state to another went from an all-weather asphalt and concrete roadway to a rutted pit that snarled the tires and reduced travel to a veritable crawl. The U.S. Highway system, and later the Interstate network, eliminated the disparity and altered the method of travel in the United States on a fundamental level from rails and wagons to buses and cars. American culture, its way of life itself changed as a result, all within the period of about 50 years.

Another 50 years before that change started, an American pioneer surveyed a route to Denver for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. That surveyor was General William Palmer. It was no small migration he was a party to, and with this westward focus, Palmer saw a unique opportunity. While routes were strung west and east from the Mississippi River to the Pacific, no one had made a serious endeavor at a north-south connection between these lines. A connection between these routes would open up a new way of passing commerce between the two points. His initial plan was to connect Denver with El Paso, Texas. Eventually, he hoped to reach Mexico City and build trade relationships from there. Additionally, Palmer likely reasoned that the flow westward would eventually stabilize. The west coast was not a bottomless pit; it would eventually fill up and people would fill in. It did, about a century after his journey.

Since the westward expansion, just like water in a miner's pan, people have sloshed about, following the direction of money, prosperity and the hope of a better life and a brighter future. It has been a pursuit of happiness, some lives successful and others not as much. What has stuck, even through the liquidity of economic upheaval, is that people and the directions they travel have a sympathetic relationship. Good sources of revenue in a given location bring better roads. Better roads bring more people, and more people facilitate more good sources of revenue. Conversely, no revenue leads to poor roads. Poor roads leads to fewer people, and fewer people produce even less revenue. Therefore, it stands to reason that proponents of transportation, whatever their motive, ultimately advocate prosperity while naysayers advocate shrinking decline. This is a timeless principle, borne out over centuries of Western Civilization, from Roman roads to the latest commuter rail line. Why then, are naysayers given any credence when they raise the tired dogs of cost and doubt? We listen to them at the risk of our future.

Palmer's baby road was stopped by the snake of the Santa Fe Railway and never crossed Raton Pass on Colorado's southern border with New Mexico. Instead, it's westward wanderings to tap the Rocky Mountains gold and silver deposits to drive the rails further south became an end unto itself, eventually driving all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah. Had the Rio Grande actually reached El Paso, Denver's history and the remainder of the west would have looked far different today. What future will today's transportation efforts bring us? Will Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas be successful in their joint effort to secure the 11th high speed rail corridor for a vision similar to Palmer's ultimately succeed? Let's hope so, for our future's sake.

Articles:

• NM, Colo., Texas seek high-speed rail link, - Denver Post - Jul 9 (also Houston Chronicle)
  
• Colo., Texas, N.M. seek high-speed passenger train,- Denver Post - Jul 9
• Wyoming rail study hangs on Colorado decisions,- Denver Post - Jul 9
• Three-state push seeks Denver-to-El Paso rail, - Denver Post - Jul 10
• High-speed passenger rail being planned between El Paso and Denver - Colorado Springs Gazette - Jul 9
• NM seeks high-speed rail with Colorado, Texas - New Mexico Business Journal - Jul 9
  

Related:

• CR: RMRA Presents I-70 & I-25 Options To DRCOG Today
  
• CR: Times and Seasons In the I-70 Corridor
  
• Rocky Mountain Rail Authority

Please note that this is indirectly related to the R2C2 efforts by CDOT because it involves part of the same regional railroad structure. This is also not directly related to the Ports-To-Plains DOT Studies.

Knowing The Facts About Trains

Trains Magazine has an article online backing up this month's cover article. The cover article itself posed an interesting question. You're at a party when, wonder of wonders, someone discovers that you're a train geek and they start talking about the "little known facts" of railroading, which actually could be myths. Do you know which are true facts and which are mythical falsehoods?

• Standard gauge came from the width of a horses backside/a Roman chariot
  
• Rails-to-trails and then trails-to-rails actually works
• A passenger train's carbon footprint is less than the number of fully-loaded automobiles
  
• Trucks are losing the battle against freight trains
• Money-losing Amtrak costs more than highways or airlines
• A mile of railroad costs more than a mile of highway
• Maglev will never be more than a novelty

Are any of these true? You'll have definitive answers to these issues and more if you read the current issue of trains. Next time you're at a party, you might save yourself with these answers. Or maybe you'll just smile and nod as they go on in their ignorance.

ColoRail Filing Suit To Halt Current Union Station Plan

The Colorado Rail Passenger Association, one of the pro-rail advocacy groups in Colorado, is filing a lawsuit aimed at stopping the current plans of the powers at work re-developing Denver Union Station. According to the ColoRail press release,

ColoRail finds the proposed plan short on transportation services that were committed to in the earlier planning processes and published documents. Specific concerns include the lack of expansion capacity for future transportation services, including planned passenger rail on the I-70 and Front Range corridors; insufficient passenger convenience and connectivity; and proposed project design features that are excessively costly to construct, will seriously disturb the neighborhood, and entail unnecessarily high operation and maintenance costs that have yet to be fully explained to the public.

ColoRail got its start 20 years ago when Denver Union Station was threatened with being demolished. The group's original name, Save Our Station, was changed when they accomplished their goal. Their mission has since expanded to advocate state-wide and inter-regional passenger rail service. It seems they're returning to their roots when they seek to preserve the vitality and centrality of Union Station from the greed of land developers who treat rail like an afterthought.

I know that RTD has a real penchant for underestimating demand. In 1995, I cruised the parking lot at I-25 and Broadway forever looking for a parking space, even after emergency arrangements for "unpaved parking" in adjacent lots had been made. They never expected that their baby light rail line would be so wildly popular and their future growth was stunted because of inadequate planning.

That same year of 1995, Denver International Airport opened, replacing the old Stapleton International Airport. It's triumph was that it would likely never run out of concourse space like Stapleton did, as Concourses A through C were straddled on a straight line, connected by a tram system (why not more efficient rail vehicles?) that could be extended as far as necessary to accomodate future concouses farther out. With the forward thinking the planners used, we will be able to accomodate future generations of aircraft beyond the A380.

I can't help recalling Stapleton and RTD's failure to plan as I look at the present plans which freeze off any similar expansion possibilities with two massive ice cubes of buildings. ColoRail is right to file this suit and should be supported. In 50 or 100 years, DIA will definitely be in use. We should be able to say the same about Denver Union Station, but we won't unless these plans are stopped in their tracks.

More about DUS and the future of rail in Colorado

• Latest coverage by Joel Warner of Follow That Story
• Trains News Alert (subscriber service)
• What would a big city project be without union labor?
• RTD's FasTracks Denver Union Station page
• Bob Brewster Op-Ed In DBJ: People Must Be Heard
  
• Colorado Rail Passenger Association
• ColoRail President Ira Schriber Op-Ed On DUS Dilemma
  
• Rocky Mountain Rail Authority