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In a country that tears out 3,000 miles of railroad every year, the proposed abandonment of another 175 miles of track certainly matters less than Mark Furhman's vocabulary or Lisa Marie's makeup.
The track in question runs along the Arkansas River west from Cañon City through the Royal Gorge to Salida, north to Leadville, through a tunnel under Tennessee Pass to Minturn, and down the Eagle River to Dotsero, where it connects with the line that runs west from Denver through the Moffat Tunnel.
It is the old main line of the Denver & Rio Grande. After the Moffat Tunnel and the Dotsero Cutoff got connected in 1937, this line lost much of its traffic. But even after the Rio Grande was swallowed by the Southern Pacific, the line stayed pretty busy -- 20 trains a day at last count.
The Tennessee Pass route is slow and expensive for rail operations, as compared to the Moffat Tunnel route, but it had an advantage. The Moffat Tunnel is too low for double-stacked containers, and the Southern Pacific needs to haul double-stacks through the middle of America if it wants to compete.
However, if the proposed merger between the Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific goes through, then there's that straight and fast line across Wyoming for the double-stacks. And thus, no need for the Royal Gorge Route. The railroad has petitioned for abandonment if the merger is approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Along the line are some local shippers -- the Asarco Black Cloud Mine east of Leadville, a few quarries -- and they might well close if they're forced to use trucks, which cost considerably more. For instance, it costs one local quarry $10 a ton to truck rocks to Pueblo, and only $21 a ton to ship by rail all the way to Chicago.
The logical thing to do with the line, if the railroad doesn't want it, is for the Colorado Department of Transportation to take it, and lease it to a short-line operator.
Local shippers might get better freight service (some complain, privately, that it would be nearly impossible to provide worse service than they get now from the SP). This would preserve, maybe even augment, some blue-collar jobs hereabouts that pay decent wages.
To make this acceptable to certain political factions,
we could call it preservation of cultural diversity
in an area getting overwhelmed by industrial tourism.
Further, the more freight on the rails and the fewer big
trucks on twisting mountain roads, the safer we all
are.
As for tourism, frequent shuttle trains could solve several problems. Passengers on trains aren't congesting our highways, and they could relax and enjoy the scenery instead of worrying about imported cars with mountain bikes on top -- the vehicle most likely to be driven by a maniac these days.
The hundreds of thousands of people who raft the Arkansas River could board a train, which would stop at their put-in point. They would get off with their guides, who would unload the rafts there. After the river trip, they could ride back to where they started. Again, safer highways without those ancient school buses, towing trailers heaped with rafts.
Rail operations could make mountain roads safer, while
reducing the temptation to build bigger roads. Last week, I
was talking to Allen Best, a friend in Vail, who complained
about I-70 traffic jams and concluded that building a
four-lane highway just means you get eight lanes worth of
traffic, and there's no end to it. Aren't we smart enough
to come up with something better?
Probably not. One county commissioner here is excited about proposed railroad abandonment because the roadbed would provide room for a four-laned U.S. 50 along the Arkansas River between Salida and Cañon City. Gee. We could get an outlet mall, maybe, and turn into another Silverthorne.
Another possibility is that the railroad corridor could
be preserved as a rail-trail.
This offers certain
benefits -- at least there would be a safe and convenient
route for bicycling, as well as easy strolls and horse-back
rides. If Summit County's trails are any indication, a
175-mile rail-trail would attract thousands of upscale
tourists who spend money.
But rail-trails can generate opposition. I proposed one back in 1984 when the Monarch Quarry line was abandoned, and half a dozen hobby ranchers started looking for a tar barrel. They said their tax-break Ponderosas would suffer grievous harm if hippies and dogs strolled down the old railroad right-of-way.
A rail-trail is better than nothing, of course, and with the Arkansas River Headwaters State Park running parallel to much of its course, an administrative mechanism is already in place.
But a rail-trail also represents a final transition from a place where people did hard honest work to a place where people get their livelihoods by smiling at visitors.
Tourism isn't evil, but it shouldn't be the only game in
town, either. Our mountains are full of one-industry
settlements now known as ghost towns.
Again, aren't
we smart enough to come up with something better?
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