One of my father’s customers just indicated that he and his fellow ranchers are all up in arms about a new rail line that "is being put in from Colorado to Houston Texas.
I am assuming this is just crazy talk. But does anyone know if there is something legitimate that this guy is mistaking this for?
Gabe
I suspect he is talking about Colorado wanting to move the ‘Joint Line’ to get it out of several cites along the route south of Denver. I an sure BNSF-UP will go along with it as long the the taxpayer’s foot the bill. From what I understand is that this is in the classic ‘run it up the flag pole’ stage at this point. I do not think an funding or even a good cost estimate has been done on the idea.
Jim
Gabe,
I suspect he is talking about Colorado wanting to move the ‘Joint Line’ to get it out of several cities along the route south of Denver. I an sure BNSF-UP will go along with it as long the the taxpayer’s foot the bill. From what I understand is that this is in the classic ‘run it up the flag pole’ stage at this point. I do not think an funding or even a good cost estimate has been done on the idea.
Jim
There was something around 3 to 5 years ago about Texas greatly improving its infrastructure by establishing giant new Interstate and railroad routes - for both freight and passenger - that would criss-cross the state. Nothing of it so far, of course - lack of $$$. But maybe that “old news” that they just became aware of is now the “burr under their saddles” ?
Here’s a link to a press release from Texas Gov. Rick Perry dated Nov. 9, 2005 that may be it - the “Trans-Texas Corridor” for I-69, or “TTC-69”, from Corpus Christi/ Houston to NorthEast Texas:
http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/2554/
Or maybe it’s the “NAFTA Super Highway” that Perry is promoting. From an article dated Nov. 3, 2006 on an interview with him, titled “Texas Governor Responds to Criticism of NAFTA Super Highway”:
" . . . we came up with a concept where we put it all into one particular pathway. And all of the right-of-way, the rail, the asphalt, all goes in that one place."
See: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17868
Also, from two of the comments at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1944247/posts
From post 10, posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 2:53:14 PM by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet):
“TX governor rapped for paving way for construction of Trans-Texas Corridor” - One News Now ^ | August 24, 2007 | Chad Groening
FR Posted on 08/25/2007 4:51:06 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks:
“Texas Governor Rick Perry is being called to task by an author and investigative journalist for vetoing bills that would have blocked construction of the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. Dr. Jerome Corsi has been one of the leading voices warning the American public about the consequences of the Trans-Texas Corridor, which will be part of a superhighway – purported to be four football fields wide – that will allow Mexican trucks to enter the U.S. and traverse the core of the country all the way to Canada.” [emphasis added - PDN]
Also, from post 8, posted on We
About 5 hours ago I tried another post with some more info about this, but apparently it either got lost in cyberspace or sidetracked to the moderators - in any event, it hasn’t shown up here yet.
Short version is that it could well be the Trans-Texas Corridor, which would at least partially parallel I-35 - also know as the "NAFTA Super Highway " ! Once source had it as “several football fields wide”, and another touted all the improvements that would benefit both truck and freight (UP RR) traffic, as well as highways in general with the elimination of grade crossings. Finally, the Star-Telegram had an Op-Ed piece on Sun., Nov. 30, 2008 wherein a couple of Texas State Senators (I think) called for the Legislature to do a lot of work on transportation issues starting in January, including doing something with a $5 billion bond issue that was approved by the voters a year ago.
There was a proposal here in Colorado to build a toll highway & rail line parallel to I25& the joint line out on the eastern plains. There was quite an uproar here as these areas are getting more heavily populated with people moving east from Colo. Springs & Denver. There were some changes made in CO state law resulting from this to make it more difficult to condemn property for this type of project.
Gabe: ColoradoDOT several years ago completed a feasibility study for constructing a new line running north-south from approximately Brush, where BNSF coal trains running south from the PRB toward Texas turn southwesterly toward Denver, and ending approximately at Las Animas, where BNSF coal loads turn south on the Boise City line toward Texas. The purpose of this project would be to remove coal trains as well as several through manifest trains between the Pacific Northwest and Texas from the Joint Line between Denver and Pueblo, and the former Colorado & Southern between Denver, Boulder, Longmont and Fort Collins, in order to make capacity available on the existing corridor for commuter and corridor passenger trains. Some UP traffic as well might be rerouted as well.
The State of Colorado has not made any commitment of funding for this project to my knowledge.
Entirely separately, the State of Texas has committed significant funding for preliminary design of the TransTexas Corridor, a plan to build several high-capacity, high-speed highways and railways across the state in order to improve economic growth, mobility, job creation, and remove traffic and congestion from cities. This plan also does not have funding committed for construction to my knowledge.
RWM
Here are the links, as best as I can reconstruct them:
From “Texas Highway Funding” dated December 24, 2007, at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1944247/posts
From post 8, posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 12:58:34 PM by zeugma (Hillary! - America’s Ex-Wife!):
[clip]
“The design of the TTC will eliminate truck-car accidents, because trucks will be on their own separate roads in the corridors. Also the corridors will have double tracked freight rail rights of way that will modernize the rail infrastructure in Texas. The rail portion alone of the TTC-35 corridor will allow the elimination of 1 million trucks per year from I-35, decreasing congestion and improving safety for those people traveling on I-35. I can see how the trial lawyers won’t like that.”
"Union Pacific and other rail roads will be able to abandon old deteriorated rail rights of way with lots of dangerous grade level crossings and be able to operate 85 mph trains from border to border without having to slow down, because all rail traffic will be grade separated from any crossing streets and highways. The existing rail infrastructure in Texas was laid out in the 19th century when locomotives used steam and had to stop to frequently replenish fuel and water used to generate steam. They weren’t built for high speeds, and they went through the middle of towns and cities. Very little of the rail right of way in Texas is double tracked even though Texas is now the second most populous state in the union. Even if the Union Pacific and other rail roads in Texas want to doub
Geez, this is still doing that - again this morning. Let’s try again - here’re the links:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1944247/posts - “Texas Highway Funding” - see esp. post 8, and also post 10 (“4 football fields wide” !), from Dec. 24 - 26, 2007;
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17868 - “Texas Governor Responds to Criticism of NAFTA Super Highway”, dated 11/03/2006;
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17868 - "Texas’ highway system needs love, care — and money", dated Sun., Nov. 30, 2008.
50% of my posts are being “held for moderation” which has incentived me to lose interest in this forum in a great hurry.
Anyway, trying again, in brief, on the off chance it might not be a waste of time:
CDOT paid for a feasibility 4 years ago to move trains off the Front Range between Fort Collins and Pueblo to a new line roughly connecting to BNSF-UP at Brush, crossing the KP roughly at Kit Carson, and connecting with BNSF roughly at Las Animas. Purpose of the project would be to create space in the Front Range Corridor for commuter and corridor passenger trains, reduce grade-crossing delays, reduce emissions, reduce highway maintenance costs, etc. I am not aware of any committments for funding by anyone to build this concept.
Texas is managing a separate project to build combined rail/highway corridors criss-crossing Texas for economic stimulus. It’s in the conceptual design/economic analysis stage. No funding has been committed for construction, to my knowledge.
RWM
Now that’s a real concern for me - both for the missing posts themselves, and more importantly, your (pending ?) loss of interest in this forum. I know how much time and effort and insight go into the background knowledge, composing, and editing those well-written posts, and how annoying - no, infuriating it is when they vanish without a trace. (Computers and their priests or hand-maidens at it again, I suppose - “Nothing can go wrong”, anyone ?) Without your posts, I know I wouldn’t be here as much, either. So my next message - before I got to lunch even ! - will be to Bergie and Selector to assertively request that they do something about that, pronto !
I think this is what I had in mind earlier in response to Gabe’s inquiry. Thanks for the confirmation.