WASHINGTON — In a boost to efforts to maintain the route of Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, a federal grant will pay for installation of positive train control on 179 miles of track between Dodge City, Kan., and Las Animas, Colo.
Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D) announced Thursday that the U.S. Department of Transportation was awarding a federal $9.16 million Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement grant to cover the installation, which covers trackage hosting BNSF freight traffic as well as the Chief. The route west of Trinidad, Colo., to Lamy, N.M. only see the daily passenger train in each direction.
Colorado led the application process and was joined in providing a $2.29-million, 20-percent match by Kansas and Amtrak, which contributed $770,000, to secure a total of $11.45 million needed for the project.
“This grant will allow for the expansion of PTC onto a part of the Amtrak route system that does not currently have it, and is consistent with our ongoing systemwide safety initiative,” Amtrak’s Senior Director of Government Affairs, Ray Lang, says in a statement thanking the state for its leadership.
Jim Souby, president of the Colorado Rail Passengers Association, adds, “Many in Congress don’t realize how important these passenger rail services are to our western rural communities. This is an important step in a long campaign, and we are honored Senator Bennet has helped by continuing his support.
While the investment helps one part of the route, a $25 million federal Transportation Infrastructure Generating Economic Recovery grant won by Colfax County, Colo., for New Mexico improvements still awaits a $3 million match from Amtrak before it can be finalized.
“We’re continuing to work with the stakeholders regarding that segment,” Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari tells Trains News Wire, adding that Amtrak’s plans are to maintain service on all current routes through Sept. 30, 2019, the end of the passenger railroad’s current fiscal year.
Sen. Bennet was among legislators instrumental in inserting language in a pending omnibus appropriation conference committee report directing Amtrak to furnish the match, but the bill has yet to be acted on.
glad to hear this and hope it means the rest of the route will get the funds promised by Amtrak when Joe Boardman was President and worked out a deal with BNSF. “Propeller head” does not want to honor it and I read the letter Joe sent him on a Facebook post and he called him out to honor the deal. That man does not need to be running an RR, he has an airline mentality and they are nothing alike.
As a Rock Island fan, I like Mr. Blackwood’s idea. It would hinge on 3 things, BNSF allowing the Chief on the transcon west of Vaughn, UP allowing the Chief on the Golden State Route between Vaughn and Hutchinson, KS, and connections at Vaughn and Hutchinson. However, it would ruin connections to Denver and drop Colorado completely. It would also not preserve Raton for possible front range corridor service in the future.
Perhaps the UP’s Golden State route would be an option for a rerouting of the SW Chief if the BNSF-UP connecting track near Vaughn can be reversed.
I did read the article, but the fact remains that even with limited freight service, PTC is not needed east of Trinidad and I believe from other articles that Amtrak will be paying considerably for the maintenance of a line that they use for 2 trains per day with no corridor potential.
I believe my proposal makes sense anyway because it allows Amtrak to enter several new markets while preserving service to almost all of their existing markets without adding significantly to route miles or operating costs.
There would be some up from cost to rebuild some equipment because current Chief equipment could not hold down the Chicago-Oklahoma City service also, and the Chief itself may need one additional train set due to increased running time. Perhaps some of the money that was to go to upgrading the line east of Trinidad could be used for this purpose.
I believe from other articles I’ve read that BNSF does not want the Chief on the Southern Transcon, but I like Mr. Blackwood’s idea if BNSF can be persuaded to run it.
Shouldn’t that be Colfax County New Mexico?
It would be better to use it on the portion of the route west of Trinidad, which has potential as part of a Front Range Corridor. While BNSF may not want the Chief on the Transcon, it may allow it on the joint line since coal traffic is down and in long term decline. Combine the Chief with the Zephyr east of Denver. Allow some extra time in Denver to put the Chief’s night between Albuquerque and Flagstaff. This allows daytime Thruway connections to Phoenix, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Bakersfield (San Joaquin connection) on the west end and daytime Thruway connections to El Paso (Sunset Limited connection), Dallas-Ft. Worth, and Oklahoma City from Albuquerque.
Cover the Eastern portion of the Chief’s route with a Chicago-Kansas City-Oklahoma City train, running overnight between Kansas City and Oklahoma City. This provides a direct connection to the Heartland Flyer and to the Oklahoma City-Albuquerque Thruway service.
This allows Amtrak to:
1. Preserve same-seat Chicago-LA service.
2. Preserve Raton Pass for possible corridor service.
3. Avoid upgrading and maintain the line East of Trinidad which has no freight or passenger corridor potential.
4. Enter several new markets including Denver-LA, KC-Texas directly and others including LA-Dallas via Thruway connections.
If the line has functioning ATS, doesn’t that count as a PTC equivalent?
The lead locomotive in the picture, Amtrak’s P42 Number 145, remains at Beech Grove in disrepair nearly a year after the collision with a sanitation truck while pulling a charter train to a retreat in West Virginia for Congressional Republicans in January 2018.
I have heard that BNSF uses Trinidad-La Junta sometimes as an alternative to the ex-C&S line to Pueblo.
Get your semaphore photos now… Darth Vader hooded color lights coming soon.
What about rerouting the SW Chief on the Southern Transcon through Wichita to connect with an extended Heartland Flyer to Wichita and a new Denver-Wichita train over the Chief’s current route through western Kansas?.
Obviously someone did not read the article very well, the only part that would passenger only(i.e. Amtrak) is between Trinidad, CO and Lamy, NM, based on that statement, perhaps not currently at the moment, but sometime in the future some freight is expected to move over the line east of Trinidad, CO., which does not agree with the statement/suggestion of Landon Rowell.
Landon I like your idea for the Southwest Chief. They could also terminate the chief at Pueblo. Then start up a Denver-El Paso train that connects with the Sunset Limited. With connections made in Pueblo, and El Paso.
Given Amtrak’s historical proclivity to play a “shell game” over the “Southwest Chief” re:
1) The pathetic proposal to substitute a bus between Dodge City-Albuquerque which any travel intern would confirm how traffic would immediately decline and kill the route;
2) The misleading excuse of killing the “Chief” due to a route segment in New Mexico lacking PTC, but failing to acknowledge how the FRA had previously granted that segment a variance from PTC;
3) The inexcusable distortion of allocating costs to transform this route into a “dog;”
why is their no MOU between Amtrak and Congress over the provision to Amtrak of $50Million + PTC funds to override Amtrak’s vague promise to operate the “Chief” only until October, 2019?
Does Amtrak regard everybody as fools to renege its commitments, or, perhaps, just easy targets to be shaken down? Perhaps if we had a complete external forensic external audit of Amtrak’s costing out the Gateway Project, we might find funds secreted away for the benefit of certain real estate ventures that could actually pay for all of this work on the “Chief” route…
Charles, in a word, no. ATS is a very rudimentary system dating back to the 1930’s or so. It overrides the engineer ONLY if he fails to acknowledge a signal indicating less than “clear”, and then apply some amount of braking effort. It has no sense of the speed of the train. It can not distinguish the difference between an “approach” and a “stop” signal. An engineer can theoretically hit the acknowledging button, then sail through a red signal at 30 mph and onward indefinitely. Therefore it cannot in any way fulfil the four basic requirements of PTC, i.e., positive stop enforcement, civil speed enforcement (curves, bridges, etc.), temporary (work area) speed enforcement, and detection of incorrect switch position.