ALAMOSA, Colo. — An outdoors group has filed an objection to plans by OmniTRAX to buy the bankrupt San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad, saying it will permanently damage the group’s effort to expand recreational trails in Colorado’s San Luis Valley along the railroad’s right-of-way.
The Mineral County Miner reports San Luis Valley Great Outdoors has requested a hearing over the sale, with the organization claiming it had agreements with two other bidders pursuing the railroad but that trustee William A. Brandt Jr. was favoring the OmniTRAX bid.
“OmniTRAX is against allowing trail systems within and near its railroad easements,” the group writes in its filing. It says its long-term plan for trail expansion requires “easements within and near the 150 miles of track which are among the assets of SLRG.”
OmniTRAX announced in October that it had completed an agreement to buy the San Luis & Rio Grande, a 155-mile former Denver & Rio Grande Western line connecting Alamosa and Antonio to the Union Pacific at Walsenburg, Colo. [see “OmniTRAX finalizes deal …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 12, 2022]
This is a transparent money grab by the San Luis Valley Great Outdoors group, in my opinion. They have no need for trails in or near the easements but would probably like very much to be handed some ‘shut up and go away’ cash by OmniTRAX.
Here we go again! Another ‘front is opened up in the #”Rails to Trails” Battle…. New York seems to be the poster child, named in this continuing fight (?) It is just another slice of the baloney…Exercise, and hiking, are just the ‘clubs’ being used to open up land for the Real Estate ‘Industry’ to take another avenue to more profitability, and not to mention, further Lawyer employment opportunity…. One only has to look at the maps of Colorado, and its environs, to see the availability of the myriad, previously, abandoned rail lines across the scenic,Colorado Mtns.
This is a growing trend that needs to be stopped. A county in new york wants to actually condemn an out of service line over the objections of the shortline owners.
What about all the many long-abandoned Colorado narrow gauge lines — including DR&GW — that should provide for plenty of trails already?
By the way, it is Antonito not Antonio.
It would seem to me that OMNItracx is trying to prevent it self from future law suits by people who may be hit by a train while hiking. As I remember there was an incident or two in Northern New England where snowmobilers were killed by a train when they went on the RRs right of way.
Recreational trails my ass. #railsovertrails
No reason they can’t have both side by side.