Colorado Pacific Railroad, the rail enterprise of Colorado billionaire Stefan Soloviev, is no longer pursuing purchase of the former Denver & Rio Grande Western Tennessee Pass line, according to the nonprofit website Colorado Newsline.
The railroad’s general counsel, William Osborn, told the site Soloviev — a major New York developer and chairman of Crossroads Agriculture, which Newsline says is the 26th largest landowner in the U.S. with holdings in Colorado, New Mexico, and Kansas — instead purchased the former San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad. Colorado Pacific purchased that former Iowa Pacific property in a bankruptcy auction last year [see “Late bid leads to new owner …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 19, 2022]. It is now operating as the Colorado Pacific Rio Grande Railroad. The company also operates the Colorado Pacific, a former Missouri Pacific line from Towner, Colo., near the Kansas state line, to NA Junction, some 27 miles east of Pueblo.
Colorado Pacific and parent company KCVN at one point offered Union Pacific $10 million for the out-of-service Tennessee Pass line, then attempted to force UP to sell them the route in 2020. That effort was rejected by the Surface Transportation Board [see “Regulators toss out effort …,” News Wire, March 18, 2020]. They sought to block a UP lease agreement with Rio Grande Pacific to operate the line announced the following year [see “Colorado Pacific files objections …,” News Wire, Jan. 11, 2021]. That plan has been dormant since Rio Grande Pacific’s request for an exemption to allow the transaction to go forward was rejected by the STB [see “Federal regulators reject short line plan …,” News Wire, March 26, 2021].
Residents along the Tennessee Pass route are concerned the line, if revived, would be used to transport oil from the planned Uinta Basin Railway in Utah, which also is a Rio Grande Pacific project. Rio Grande Pacific has said it has no such plans, and was willing to have the STB exclude transport of oil as part of its exemption to operate the line. Eagle County, Colo., and a coalition of environmental groups have sued over the STB’s approval of the Uinta Basin project [see “Environmental groups sue …,” News Wire, Feb. 14, 2022]. Colorado Newsline reports the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington last week heard oral arguments in that case last week.
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