On Dec. 13, the STB’s Office of Environmental Analysis published the Final Scope of Study for the Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Uinta Basin Railway. A cooperative regional planning group called the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition has proposed building a brand new railroad that will stretch more than 80 miles from the Union Pacific’s Provo Subdivision at Kyune, Utah, northeast toward South Myton Bench and Leland Bench, Utah.
The project dates back to 2012 when the U.S. Department of Transportation began studying a new rail line to reach the basin’s natural resources, specifically oil.
According to the scope of study, the railroad’s backers expect anywhere from three to 10 trains a day on the route.
Since 2012, 30 different routes connecting the Uinta Basin with the national rail network have been considered. Some were eliminated due to impacts to a nearby national park or lack of competitive rail access. At one point, the backers considered building a 185-mile route east to connect with the former Denver & Rio Grande Western Craig Branch but later decided that building west, toward UP’s Soldier Summit route, would be preferable because it would also connect with BNSF Railway. The eventual environmental impact study will consider three different routes – the Whitmore Park Alternative, the Indian Canyon Alternative, and the Wells Draw Alternative – as well as what would happen if the railroad was not built.
The environmental impact study will consider a wide range of issues, including impacts the proposed railroad might have on wildlife, air quality, safety, and recreation.
An earlier study of the railroad found that would require 2.4 percent grades and multiple multiple bridges and tunnels.
Do they plan to obtain the oil by traditional means ( i.e. drilling ), or do they plan fracking?
We do need more domestic sources of oil. No, the world is not going to end by climate change in eleven years, as Jane Fonda says.
If EPA had existed in the 1860’s, I doubt that the Transcontinental Railroad would’ve been built!
Carl:
Crude trains already exist on the ex-D&RGW east of Helper. I don’t know about UP, but BNSF is already running them from Wellington (a suburb of Price) to Southeast Texas via Moffat Tunnel. There’s also the chance that a BNSF coal train could start (again) from the Savage loadout (also near Wellington) to run east via Moffat.
The Utah Railway is done hauling coal since early 2017. The Utah Railway is more or less BNSF’s switching agent in Provo, Salt Lake City, and Ogden. They also handle the trains to/from the Helper/Price/Wellington area to/from Grand Junction for BNSF (there might not be many trains through Green River, Utah, but that one main track can be used by four railroads: UP, BNSF, UTAH, and Amtrak!).
While any additional freight traffic along the route will benefit the California Zephyr, the ex-D&RGW route in Eastern Utah is not a “less severe version of the BNSF/Raton Pass dilemma.”
This is because the two are not similar and the fate of Raton Pass is clear cut with regard to freight traffic: It will never see any again. While I think we all wish the ex-D&RGW had more freight traffic, it’s not devoid of traffic nor is it a route without potential, especially with regard to changing commodities pertaining to energy.
I consider the “lack of PTC” between Denver and Salt Lake City being a minimal threat to the California Zephyr. Yes, we all know that the Chicken Littles at Amtrak were once screaming about ALL non-PTC routes but since the initial squawk, there has been little said – well, except for one, and that’s the route over Raton Pass. In my opinion, the main impetus about the lack of PTC on the Raton Pass route was really about the current Amtrak administration not wanting to fork over money in perpetuity to keep hundreds of miles of railroad in service for two passenger trains per day. Time will tell if the current Amtrak regime renews its threats on routes without PTC, but with Anderson it’s all about doing whatever to make it appear that Amtrak is about to “break even.” That is, break even by their accounting methods which are suspect at best. Regardless, the Raton Pass route is considered an ongoing barrier toward that goal.
The Tennessee Pass story reminds me of the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern’s desire to move into the Powder River Basin. It never made any economic sense, and therefore they couldn’t get the money to do so. Same thing for this Tennessee Pass fantasy. And no, I don’t know why UP didn’t abandon it, but it wasn’t to keep BNSF away. BNSF wants Tennessee Pass like they want Raton and Glorieta: not. As for using Tennessee Pass as a way to keep trains out of Denver: I think the reduction in BNSF and UP coal traffic will do the same.
Your “This line was a major mainline hosting 8-12 trains per day virtually to the day of its closure. UP had other, lower grade ways to forward former SP traffic east–yet they never pulled the heavy rail off this line” comment confuses me. I don’t know if by “rail” you meant the actual rail itself or the traffic, but Tennessee Pass was shut down in just over a year after UP bought the SP. Considering the myriad challenges associated with this marriage (including gridlock in many places), the change in traffic routing could hardly be immediate, but did happen fairly quickly. The only thing SP traffic over Tennessee Pass indicated was the inadequacy of capacity on the much more-efficient Sunset-Golden State routes.
The Sumpter Valley folks were more successful in recovering their two modern 2-8-2 Mikados that, like the bulk of the Rio Grande’s K28 engines, had been seized by the US Army Corps on Engineers in the Second World War to expand the roster of the White Pass and Yukon–particularly during the construction of the Alaska Highway.
I had the great pleasure of riding behind SVRR #19 in July, 2017 back on its original SVRR route. She has been gloriously restored!
Multiple multiple trucks on 2-lane US 40? There are already so many trucks on this highway that the people living in the Uintahs are extremely unhappy.. It is 11 tears since I deove through there, but I do not think there is much room for a highway wide enough to handle such traffic.
A bad idea. The world has plenty of oil.
A link to view the mapped route options is at http://uintabasinrailwayeis.com/
This line–if built–taps some of the richest shale oil deposits in the world. It appears to diverge from the former D&RGW mainline near Soldiers Summit in Utah. It is unclear if the ultimate destination of this traffic would be to the east or west. The fact that they considered a 185 mile long mainline west from Craig (the end of the Moffat Road/Denver and Salt Lake–now the UP/D&RGW Craig branch) suggests at least some traffic might head east.
The note above about connecting to BNSF is also interesting. BNSF has trackage rates from Denver all the way to California on the UP’s former D&RGW/WP lines, but is generally restricted only to handling overhead traffic. Would the BNSF be able to add tank cars to its track-rights trains at the junction with the new Uintah Basin Railway, or would this traffic go east in UP trains via the Moffat route (or even a revived Tennessee Pass line–which is now rumored to be in line for a restoration), in order to reach real BNSF tracks east of the Front Range? Fascinating.
Any significant addition of petroleum trains from Grand Junction, CO to just west of Price/Helper, UT to connect to the Unintah Basin line could also indirectly help Amtrak by requiring the installation of PTC on this section. This portion of the UP’s former D&RGW mainline was exempted from PTC, because of its very low volumes of freight traffic. Until the UP/Utah Ry coal trains appear west of Helper, the line typically sees only the Amtrak CZ and the two daily BNSF freights in each direction–plus the weekly UP freight from Grand Junction down the spur to Moab, UT and very infrequently a UP local, if there was a customer at Green River/Price/Helper wanting cars from/to the east. No coal routinely moves over that district, and the surviving mixed goods traffic that moved in the many “short/fast” Rio Grande freights of the late 1980s now goes via the Overland Route across Wyoming.
This has created a less severe version of the BNSF/Raton Pass dilemma for the future of the CZ. If the UP were to allow BNSF to reroute its track-rights trains across Wyoming, the Moffat Route would be in danger of becoming a long mixed traffic branch from Denver to Grand Junction and Amtrak-only Grand Junction to Price/Helper. That could lead to the end of the CZ, if Amtrak had to take-on the full cost of maintaining over 177 miles of Class Four mainline track.
Added freight volume west of Grand Junction could require PTC to be added on the Grand Junction-Utah portion of the line. The current track/signal conditions here are far better than on Raton Pass, but if the Amtrak/Anderson/Gardner management wanted to, they could revive their “no PTC–no Amtrak” threats on this route as well, and it is even more remote than the former Santa Fe mainline over Raton Pass from Trinidad, CO to Lamy, NM. At least at present nothing remotely like the SOUTHWEST CHIEF advocacy coalition exists to argue for improvements on the UP/D&RGW through the Ruby Canyon.
It’s significant to note how freight traffic issues may indirectly impact passenger service and how the needs of passenger trains may also potentially improve a route for freight as well. Too often this symmetry is missed.
Not only might both Amtrak and the UP/BNSF “profit” from a revival of freight traffic on this line, but just possibly this could explain some of the thinking behind the rumors of a Tennessee Pass revival as well. Seasonal grain traffic hardly seems enough to justify returning a district with nearly 4% grades to regular operations. Yet the Trains Newswire reported as recently as November 19 that UP was considering an offer to buy this route, that could result in a revival of freight trains on this line. http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/11/19-up-considering-sale-of-tennessee-pass-route
Obviously only time will tell–but this does speak to the wisdom of “rail banking”. UP held onto the Tennessee Pass/Royal Gorge route for over 20 years after regular service ended over the Continental Divide. Were they just blocking BNSF (shades of the Santa Fe/Rio Grande “Royal Gorge War”) or were they simply being prudent in waiting for a better day? This line was a major mainline hosting 8-12 trains per day virtually to the day of its closure. UP had other, lower grade ways to forward former SP traffic east–yet they never pulled the heavy rail off this line. What did they know? This has been one of the great mysteries of contemporary railroading. Sometimes disparate events are linked. This saga will be fascinating to watch!
These two links ought to be helpful.
From a previous TRAINS article, a direct link to the EIS website:
http://uintabasinrailwayeis.com/
Direct link to the project website, including some (vague):
http://uintabasinrailway.com/
My opinion is that this is a lot of time and money spent on a line that will have a very limited lifespan at best, as oil becomes less of an important power source to our transportation and energy. But whatever, I like trains, and it would be in an interesting project to follow.
An environmental study on what is considered a “wasteland?”
How about multiple multiple trucks instead.
Why some maps of Alternatives? Would be interesting to see what a multiple multiple bridges look like.
Anna, I’m sorry to report the 50 and 51 were scrapped in Guatemala about 40-45 years ago. Members of the Sumpter Valley Railroad went down about that time to try and recover them, and failed. (We got our tenders back, though!)
As for this proposal, it would certainly be interesting to see. With the rising calls for renewable energy, though, it’ll take more than oil to make it viable.
Gerald,
Thanks for the clarification. A very thoughtful insight!
Carl Fowler,
The BNSF can solicit new business along the trackage rights they have on UP, and in this case this is new business so both UP and BNSF would be competing to handle it it.
In 1978 I drove the dirt road that largely follows the Uintah RR grade over Baxter Pass. It was by far the most godforsaken, desolate drive I ever did–at least in a VW Beetle! The nearly 8% grades on the south side of the pass required 2-6-6-2 Mallets that still could barely haul six empties up the hill. The articulateds went to Oregon’s Sumpter Valley RR in 1940 and when it died to the jungles of Central America. In the best sense of Victorian travel-guides this region was “awful” country. Once was enough!
It all shows to go ya. They shouldn’t have been so quick to pull out the Uintah Railroad. Do you think we can get back 50 and 51?