Possibly the Towner Line Grain Prople and the UP should enter into a long-term contract for hauling grain to the west. The terms should be confidential, but such that the line would be rehabilitated by the UP itself as ac worthwhile invesrtment.
UP wouldn’t need to rehab the TP line to do this – it could move the traffic on its existing route through Denver, then either west on the Moffat route or via Cheyenne on the overland route. Yes, it would be a longer route than using TP, but it would also be using existing routes that don’t have to be rebuilt and aren’t as difficult to operate as TP. In freight railroading, the most direct route on a map is not always the best route.
This, by the way, is also the reason it would make no sense for the Towner people to acquire and upgrade the TP route, as they tried to do in their prior “feeder line” application (which was denied by STB). Their own evidence, submitted as part of their application, shows that it would cost about $278 million to return the line to service. They would be far better off interchanging their westbound grain to UP or BNSF at the west end of the Towner line (near Pueblo), which would avoid all of this expense, and also give them two competing railroads to play off against each other. In contrast, the only RR they could interchange with at the west end of the TP line (Dotsero) is UP.
But the Joint Line Pueblo - Colorado Springs - Denver is at capacity.
“daveklepper” But the Joint Line Pueblo - Colorado Springs - Denver is at capacity.
No longer the case. In fact UP use has substantially diminished, and the BNSF coal trains also.
You need to read the March 2021 issue of TRAINS. Traffic between Denver and Pueblo is mostly coal trains and it’s down 40% from its peak in 2008 (when the line was at capacity) and over 50% today. It’ll recover a bit if we beat COVID, but coal traffic won’t return to peak volume.
Exactly. This whole premise is ridiculous. Use the better existing routes. And really, where is this bonanza of grain that isn’t (evidently) moving now? Where is it going? Check out the UP and BNSF maps of shuttle grain train facilities in Eastern Colorado as it is, and there aren’t many. How do we know there really is demand? And even if there is, the volume would be seasonal and minimal - hardly worth upgrading a mountain railroad and running heavy trains over Soldier Summit. And: How do we know that the grain will bill west? These grain companies readily divert trains all over the place, and right now 75% of export grain in this country goes to the Gulf or Pacific Northwest
Apparently
[quote user=“VerMontanan”]
Falcon48
UP wouldn’t need to rehab the TP line to do this – it could move the traffic on its existing route through Denver, then either west on the Moffat route or via Cheyenne on the overland route. Yes, it would be a longer route than using TP, but it would also be using existing routes that don’t have to be rebuilt and aren’t as difficult to operate as TP. In freight railroading, the most direct route on a map is not always the best route.
This, by the way, is also the reason it would make no sense for the Towner people to acquire and upgrade the TP route, as they tried to do in their prior “feeder line” application (which was denied by STB). Their own evidence, submitted as part of their application, shows that it would cost about $278 million to return the line to service. They would be far better off interchanging their westbound grain to UP or BNSF at the west end of the Towner line (near Pueblo), which would avoid all of this expense, and also give them two competing railroads to play off against each other. In contrast, the only RR they could interchange with at the west end of the TP line (Dotsero) is UP.
Exactly. This whole premise is ridiculous. Use the better existing routes. And really, where is this bonanza of grain that isn’t (evidently) moving now? Where is it going? Check out the UP and BNSF maps of shuttle grain train facilities in Eastern Colorado as it is, and there aren’t many. How do we know there really is demand? And even if there is, the volume would be seasonal and minimal - hardly worth upgrading a mountain railroad and running heavy trains over Soldier Summit. And: How do we know that the grain will bill west? These grain companies r
BNSF’s trackage rights over the Moffat route (acquired in the UP-SP merger) are “overhead” rights. BNSF cannot interchange with an operator of the TP line at or near the west end of the line, whoever that operator may be.
They might control it at origin, but they don’t control it at the destination, and that’s pretty much all that counts. What’s so special about this wheat that you think it will go to one specific port when no other (shuttle) grain shipments do?
This assumes BNSF would want the business. Say Grand Junction is the interchange point. How will this work? Assuming a standard shuttle grain train (which we have to because only A LOT of volume - much more than even remotely could happen - could make this work) which is about 16,000 tons…the shortline drops it at Grand Junction which is nowheresville on BNSF, which needs to reposition 9 locomotives from Denver to get the train over Soldier Summit. This assumes that the train is going to somewhere like the port of Stockton. But if it’s going to Long Beach - what run it over Tehachapi and Cajon? What about the Pacific Northwest? North from Keddie, BNSF in general limits northward trains to about 4200 feet to fit for unit trains southbound. That leaves you w
I don’t know if that is true or not. After all, the UTAH Railway has trackage rights all the way to Grand Junction on UP. In the past, unit trains moving via BNSF have originated as UTAH trains and the official interchange point to BNSF was Grand Junction. This could be similar if it miraculously happened.
And think about it: UP might be OK with it knowing that BNSF was losing its butt running trains this way…
While we’re on the subject. How much time does the Rio Grande even have at this point? It’s handicapped by a tough operating profile and can not accommodate anything over Plate F…
My only point is that if the linbe is returned to service at all, the rehabilitatioin should be done by UP and nobody else, regardless of which railroad’s business the line serves.
Agreements between railroads on sharing the profits of new business don’t involve intrusions by NIMBYS or the EPA and can be done with minimum legal fees. Even the STB mght not be involved.
If new and profitable business isn’t involved, why would anyone want to repair the line?
Additional thoughts to ponder:
(1) BNSF is already picking-up, switching and setting out cars at Rifle (frac sand) and Parachute (soda ash) …no idea how the Elkins rules apply at either site.
(2)UP is trying hard to dump everything south of Denver right now (if they can get the proper trade-off)…BNSF already dispatches and maintains everything south of South Denver (I-25 & Broadway to Pueblo to NA Junction)…CDOT’s rubber-tired muggles, in one of the dumbest deals in the history of Earth, has already purchased 6+ miles of former DRGW R/W and the Burnham Shops in a related move.
(3) BNSF already had (historically, via CB&Q in 1905) the right to operate over and/or possibly purchase the Moffat line to Osterod (Bond) as a condition of the help that Moffat’s DNWP got from CB&Q (Colorado Railway)during the Gore Canyon War with (ironically) the UP and Harriman.
Is that the same thing as Orestod? Osterod spelled backward sounds like a cracker company.
Osterod spelled backward is Dotsero - the connection of the Moffit Tunnel line with the D& RG original line over Tennessee Pass.
I humbly suggest that it ain’t – which was my point in asking. Try it yourself and see.
What I typed, Orestod, is what all my references have ever indicated.
My bad - I know the name connection but did not look at the misspelling.
A couple of quick responses to Ver Montanon:
I certainly agree that the Towner line-TP concept makes no ecomonic sense. Something else that hasn’t yet been disclosed is very likely going on here. Maybe it will eventually come out.
A couple of other factoids that may be of interest. When the Towner line ws operated by MP, there was very little grain traffic produced by the line in Colorado. I have a copy of the UP abandonment application, and the line was producing roughly 200 cars of grain traffic per year - only about 2 cars per mile. Now, of course, there were a number of active grain elevators along the line at the time - how was their grain moving? Answer - it was either moving by truck direct to market, or the online elevators were trucking it to unit train loaders on other rail lines in the area (like Cheyenne Wells on the UP “KP” line). They made more money doing this than by shipping it rail direct from their own facilities in small carload lots. Of course, much may have changed in the last 20 something years but, the line was definitely not a big player in grain transportation at the time of the UP-SP merger.
Which route can’t accommodate anything over Plate F???
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