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Colorado pledges $1 million for ‘Southwest Chief’ TIGER grant match
Wow, the state of Colorado will match an “Tiger” grant with $1 million dollars for a total of $ 2 million dollars. Just how far do they believe $ 2 million dollars will go? Or to put it another way, how many track miles can the 20000 new ties cover? 7.5 @ 2640/track mile. How many miles of track are located in Colorado? More than 7.5 I think.
Good point. But IIRC I think BNSF kicks in some from the Ksnsas line to La Junta too. Point still stands from La Junta to Raton though.
An entire $1 million dollars? Must get a lot for $1 million dollars in highway construction for the state of Colorado to pledge that amount for the Southwest Chief right of way. Hope its not a budget buster.
Local matches for federal grants are usually much less than 1:1. The figure that sticks in my mind is that the federal part is 85%, but I’m not sure about that, and it probably varies from case to case anyway.
Since TIGER grants are highly competitive, a successful application is likely to have a state/local/private match significantly higher than the traditional 10-20%. USDOT wants to leverage as much state/local/private investment as possible for each Federal dollar awarded.
A few comments. There are approximately 180 miles of track used by the Southwest Chief in Colorado. Of these, about 20 are used by north-south coal trains and are in great shape for this service. This leaves about 160 miles of track that is primarily used by Amtrak, although some freight action is east of La Junta toward Garden City/Dodge City in Kansas.
I’m not sure where the 2640 ties per mile number comes from. That is close for concrete ties. However, this line is almost all wooden tie construction. There are 3249 wood ties per mile if AREMA standards are strictly used. However. most tie projects are in the range of 600-800 ties per mile. Having been over the line several times lately, a project in this range is what is necessary. The big issues seem to be joint ties, ties for gage on curves, and the need to do some field welding. PTC will be a very expensive project if required. Some replacement rail looks to be needed in a few places.
The comments about what percentage the local money would cover of the grant is valid. In many cases, the split is 1% local, 10% state, the rest federal. However, this changes quite often based upon the grants programs, incentives being provided by the grant program, demand for the grants, etc.
Good question! Would this be for portion of line from La Junta east to state line or La junta west to State line? Makes a heap of a big difference
WOW a million dollars - they could probably come up with a little more considering all the drug money they are raking in.