Brief by Central Staff
Transportation – April 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Will the Union Pacific Railroad ever again run trains over Tennessee Pass through Buena Vista and Salida to Cañon City?
No freight trains have made that run since 1997, after the UP completed its merger with the Southern Pacific, which included the Denver & Rio Grande Western which had built and operated that line for more than a century. Initially, the UP was going to abandon the track after the merger, but withdrew that request in 1998. The line is now “out of service,” and from what we hear, it would need some work, like removing small rockslides, before it could return to service.
Informed gossip speculates that the UP could find a need for the line on account of growing coal traffic, headed east from the North Fork Valley of the Western Slope.
The coal is mined in the Paonia area, where it is loaded on railcars. They move to Grand Junction, then east to Midwestern markets through the Moffat Tunnel, which sits about 50 miles west of Denver. The utilities like the coal because it has a high heating value, but is low in sulfur, and that makes it easer to meet clean-air requirements.
However, the Moffat Tunnel is near capacity, according to a story in the Feb. 26 edition of the Rocky Mountain News. And the North Fork mine operators say they’re producing more coal than the railroad can currently carry; they mined 18.2 million tons last year, but could ship only 17.3 million.
The UP said it is adding cars and locomotives, as well as some longer sidings for the North Fork line. But that won’t enlarge the capacity of the Moffat Tunnel.
Moving some coal traffic to Tennessee Pass would avoid the Moffat bottleneck. However, heavy coal trains require helper locomotives to conquer the 3% grade on the west side of Tennessee Pass. And those locomotives, which cost $2 million apiece, could make UP more money if they were on regular road service, rather than limited helper service.
Suppose the UP just routed the westbound empty coal hoppers over Tennessee Pass, though. That would reduce Moffat traffic, and since they’d be going downhill over the steep section, no helpers would be required. And that’s the scenario from the informed gossip.
But even if it sounds plausible, there’s been no announcement from the railroad, one way or another.
We like trains, but we also like being able to take walks along the tracks without worrying about any oncoming trains. In fact, we’ve become so accustomed that we’d really miss it if the trains started rolling again.