C O L O R A I L P A S S E N G E R Newsletter of the Colorado Rail Passenger Association

May - June, 2003 Issue #42

A C a s e for F a s T r a c k s L i t e

Bob Brewster and Keith Dameron who Co-Chair ColoRaii's Regional/Commuter Rail Committee will be presenting their Ideas on the Regional Transportation District's (RTD) FasTracks plan at ColoRail's Spring Meeting which will be taking place at the Englewood Public Library, Saturday, May 3 1 , 2 0 0 3 from 10:1 SAM to 12:00 Noon. Bob and Keith have studied the six proposed FasTracks corridors and will be making an illustrated presentation on how service on these corridors may be initiated quickly and economically.

The RTD Board has already adopted a vision for FasTracks, however there has been some hesitation by the Board and RTD management about the timing for an initiative for bonding to support the plan because of uncertain sales tax and other revenue projections over the next decade caused by the current sluggish economy. It appears that the date for the Initiative will be no earlier than November, 2004 .

Come and see how the rail service outlined in FasTracks can be initiated incrementally and at relatively low cost . Bob's and Keith's ideas are not intended to replace the FasTracks plan but rather provide a limited form of the service in a more timely and economic manner.

ColoRail's annual election for its Board of Directors along with a brief review of rail topics wilt take place prior to Bob's and Keith's presentation.

The library is located on the first floor of the Englewood City Center building which is just a short walk from the Englewood light rail station. The meeting will take place in the Anderson Room. Parking is plentiful both north and south of the building. Five local RTD bus routes also serve the station.

ColoRail members as well as any interested members of the public are cordially invited to attend. Refreshments will be served.

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CoioRail Hosts Regional Meeting

Much to the relief of everyone, a beautiful sunny morning greeted rail SKlvocates to the Wynkoop Brewery Restaurant after weather forecasters had predk:ted a possible repeat of the record snow^ which buried Denver the prevfous week. The meeting heki on Saturday, March 29, was attended by 90 Cok}Ralr£tfid Nstfk>nai Assodatkm of Rail­road Passer^ers members and gueste from Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado.

Wynkoop Brewery owner and Denver Mayorai carKikJate, John Hickenk)oper, wel­comed the aMerKtees. Hk^kentooperisa charter memiser ColoRail and fielped lead efforts in the late 1980s to preserve the tracks and trains at IDenver Union Station. He is a strong supporter of transit as well as environment£d causes.

Henry WuW, Preskient of the fowa Assoda-tton of Railroad Pa'ssengers, ak)ng wfti Dan Lutz, Past President (rf the Pro-RaB Nebras­ka and Eric M ^ , a Pro-R^i Director, pre­sented reporte on passenger rail ^:ti\nties from their respective states, towa continues tiieN^tradi&>n of provkfing cske and icecream to {passengers at stations served by the California Zephyr in honor of Amtrak's birtii-day on May 1, each year. Net}raska is em­barking on a comprehensive stijdy of po­tential commuter rail routes in tiie state and Omaha is k)oking at development of a multi­modal fran^x^tation facility attiie fomier Buriington Route station.

BiH Sperry, FieW Service Coordinator for the Transit Alliance, presented a short vkJeo which sufTvnarized RTD's FasTrercte propo­sal. Mr. Sperry described the six proposed light and commuter rail comdors whk^ wouki be built more or less at the same time over a ten year period and add 110 miles of rail transit to the Denver Metro area. Hesaki RTD hopes to place a financing plan before the voters by Nowmber, 2004.

Randy Grauberger, afreight rail consultant and former Infonnation Branch Manager for the Cotorado Depatment of Transportation (C-DOT), gave an update on tfie state's in­terest and involvement in rail b^an^x)rtation.

He reported tiiat C-DOT Executive Director, Tom Norton, is very interested in woridng with the railroads and v^ues tiieir contribution to tiietimisportation efforts in Colorado. Mr. Norton is Chairman of tfie Freight and Inter-modal Committee of tiie American Associa­tion of State Highway and Transportetion Officials (AASHTO), tiie national association for state DOTs, and has been making con-tads vwtii railroad offidals botti in and out of Colorado.

According to Mr. Graut)erger, Mr. Norton is leading C-DOT efforts to rorm a Cotorado Freight Advisory Committee which would indude railroads as weUas motor csHTiers, air lines, and shippers. He \flews tills commit­tee as a place where plans can be formulat­ed which can be advantageous to all of tiie ft-eightti^ansportation modes and can guide C-DOTs ti-ansportation investtnents.

Mr. Grauberger review^ prevtous C-DOT studies and how tiiey related to the current interest in Front Range passenger rail. Botii tiie recentiy corr^ieted Eastem Colorado Mobility Study and the 1996 Colorado Rail Passenger Feasibility Study describe the rail corridor in detail atong witti potential de­mand and costs. The most recent effort to define demand in tiie corridor is tiie Colora­do Commuter Bus Study.

He also mentioned tiiat C-DOT and ttie UP and BNSF are woridng on a request for pro­posals for a publto benefits stocty on possi­ble joint C-DOT/rail projects. He could not discuss tiie specifics of these projeds but did give some hints by dlsojssing some of tiie possitHe t)enefits. These t>enefits could include improvements in urt)an air quality, the spread of economic development to economically disadvantaged communities, redevelopment of urban railroad properties, reduction of h^hwayti-afficcongestion, re­duction of grade crossing delays, and im­proved rail corridor capadty for passenger trains.

"Amti-ak has l)een around for 31 years ...but just barely," stated Jack Tone, a senior pro­fession^ assodatewitii Parsons, Brindcer-hoff, and the day's final speaker. Mr. Tone, who also chairs tiie Transportation Research

Board Committee on Intercity Rail Passeng­er Systems of the National Academy of Sci­ences, presented an overview of the future with a discussion of recent developments on passenger rail.

"We need a redundancy; we cant put all our transportation eggs In one basket, he said. There is a need for multimodal solutions as demonstrated by the T-Rex project (1-25 road and light rail improvement in southeast Denver) where peak hour auto traffic will be rated 'F' even after the new construction is completed." Mr. Tone mentioned a recent AASHTO report calls for $20 billion to be invested in passenger rail over the next six years, a rather amazing request consklering it comes from an organization that has histori­cally dedrcated itself to highway construction and expansion.

Mr. Tone listed efforte being made in the Congress by members of both parties to finance rail development programs, both passenger and intermodal which he de­scribed as the fastest growing segment of the transportatton industry. He gave nu­merous examples of changing mari<et and economic situations which are providing a niche for passenger rail.

North Carolina is working with Virginia and other states in the region to provide a Southeast network of high speed trains. Air service is being redu(^ to smaller airports around the country which offers an opportun­ity for passenger rail to provide the sen/tee to localities as long as there are direct con­nections to airports. Short distance pas­senger rail needs to be augmented by the economies of long distance air service which is now becoming the common practice in Europe.

In continuing his discussion of the resurgence of rail around the country, Mr. Tone stated that Amtrak's new Acela service has cap­tured nearly 50% of the air/rail travel market between Boston and Washington resulting in a reduction of Delta Airiines shuttle service l)etween these two cities. The Capitol Cor­ridor t)etween Sacramento and San Jose now hosts 24 daily trains (effective April 28). In order to handle this load plus future ex­

pansions, host railroad, Union Pacific is dou­ble tracking the entire route.

Mr. Tone concluded his talk with a brief slide presentation about a high speed rail plan for California which has decided to build no more highways in the state. The environ­mental impact statement is due to be com­pleted in December and tiie public will be asked to vote for funding for tiie first phase of construction between San Francisco and Los Angeles in November, 2004.

The meeting ended with a tour of Colorado Railcar's manufacturing facility in Fort Lupton conducted by Tom Janaky, Vice-President of Marketing and Sales.

AASHTO Supports Colorado Corridor

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) re­centiy published Interdtv Passenger Rail Transportation mentions a Colorado Cor­ridor vision and even includes the corridor on its map of states which are participating in in-terdty passenger rail corridor development AASHTO members indude directors of de­partments of ti-ansportation across tiie US as well as state transportation commissions.

Tucked away near the end of tiiis 151 page report is a description of the Colorado Cor­ridor which includes passenger rail along tiie Front Range as well as on the 1-70 Mountain Corridor:

"Colorado has experienced explo­sive population growtii in tiie past decade and demands of tills population growtii have outstiipped tiie transportation in­frastructure in places making highway con­gestion much more of a problem now tiian it was even 10 years ago. Exduding Pueblo, all otiier meti o areas along tiie (Front Range) corridor have grown by 30 percent or better, ft-iggering a search for travel options."

"Still eariy in tiie planning stages, the 204 mile Front Range corridor would have standard passenger service; high speed rail is currentiy not under consideration. Initial in-

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f rastructure estimates are $1.2 biliiori for the Front Range Corridor. There are no equip­ment cost estimates at this time."

Accompanying this statement is a table of population growth during the past decade in Front Range Colorado cities which show a rate significantly higher than tiie growtii rate of dties in designated rail corridors else-wfiere in the country.

Young Activist Receives Award

You're never too young to support contin­uation and expansion of passenger ti-ains. This certainly applies to Jack Wheeler, a ten year old 5th grader at Lois Lenski Elementa­ry School in Littieton. Last spring, Jack read an article in tiie Denver Post about the pos­sible demise of tiie California Zephyr and decided he had to act He wrote letters to Preskient George W. Bush, and Cotorado Senators Wayne Allard and Ben Nightfiorse Campbell. He researched the ft-ain, made posters and flyers, and received permission to set up a "Save tiie Zephyr" table at his school where he urged his feltow students, parents, and teachers to contact legislators to support tfie ti-ain and Amtrak. He also dls-ti-ibuted tiiese flyers to local businesses, neighbors, and friends and family.

CotoRaii learned of Jack's efforts tfirough a leflier written by Jack's motiier which was published in the Amtrak Ink, tiie off rcial em­ployee newsletter of tiie National Passeng­er Rail Corporation. Amti ak recognized Jack's efforts witii a cab ride plus six round bip tickets for his family from Denver to Glenwood Springs. ColoRail Preskient Jon Esty contacted the family tiirough his school prindpal, and arranged for him and his family to be honored guests at the NARP Region­al meeting in Denver on March 29. Mr. Esty presented Jack with a s p ^ a l p l^ue from CotoRaii which recognized his efforts to save the ti-ain.

Amtrak & The Blizzanl of "03"

For a time, Amti ak's California Zephyr (CZ) was ttie only way one could get in and out of

Denver during tiie huge snowstorm that hit tiie Front Range March 18-20. Unfortunate­ly, a rock slide dosed a tunnel on the Moffat Line west of Denver on March 20. The eastix)und CZ of March 20 retumed to Salt Lake City after being halted in Grand Junc­tion and was combined with the easttjound CZ of March 21. The very long train then ran east to Denver via tiie UP in Wyoming.

One ColoRail member wrote the Denver Post atKDut his experience in tiying to retum to Colorado during tiie stomn:

To The Editor:

Tuesday March 18,2003 (blizzard day one) found me at tiie Frontier Airlines counter at LaGuardia Airport in New York City staring at the flight board with "CANCELLED" over my retum flight to Denver.

By Wednesday morning, facts were hard to come by, and rumors were rampant; includ­ing "tiie DIA terminal roof collapsed" and "DIA is shut down until Sunday." It became quite clear that I had two problems: 1. DIA was dosed. 2. With only two daily Frontier flights out of NYC, availability of seats would be nearly impossible for days, if not weeks.

At that point I strolled six blocks from my Manhattan hotel to Pennsylvania Station and learned that seats, even sleepers were a vailable on Amtak for an afternoon depar­ture to Denver via Chicago. I booked my passage. One way walk up coach fare: $168.00.

My train trip was marvelous, scenic, and pleasant in every regard. I retumed to work at my office in Lakewood Friday morning, barely 90 minutes later tiian my <x)mpati-iots who never left town!

The only "seetiiing"and "outage" and "frustration" I felt was toward our Colorado congressional delegation tiiat cx)nsistentiy acts todismantie what is left of a proud and func^mdinterdtyrailti-^sportationnetwork.

The sign over Union Station says 'Travel by Train." I can heartily erKJorse passenger rail

In a presentation attended by public health officials and community developers in Denver in early January, Mr. Killingsworth called for the creation of more pedestrian and bicycle friendly environments. These friendly environments would include local gridwori( of streets, sidewalks, and gathering places for commercial, educational, and re­creation activities in tiie centers of communi­ties ratiier tiian on the periphery where they can only be accessed by automobile.

Canadian Leader Likes High Speed Rail

In a room ringed witti artist conceptions of examples of intermodal transportation and filled witii Metro Denver area ti-ansportation officials, David Collenette, Canada's Minister of Transport, declared, "I am a fan of rail! We simply have to do more to move peo­ple quickly and effidentiy and we can do tiiat by building high speed rail." He went on to describe a $3 biltton (Canadian) project to increase the Quebec City - Monti eal - Tor­onto - Windsor corridor to higher speeds by improving tiBck, eliminating gradecrossings, and purchasing new equipment. He insisted that he was not trying to design a French-style TGV system which he estimated would cost $12 billion but rather improve speeds and reliability on the existing cor­ridor.

Minister Collenette made his remartcs at tiie annual Intemiodal Transportation Institute's (ITI) Nortfi American Transportation Distin­guished Lecture Series at tiie University of Denver on April 8. His presentation was sponsored by OmniTRAX, a large interna­tional short line railroad operator based in Denver. Pat Broe, President, the Broe Companies, Inc/OmniTRAX, made the in-ti-oduction.

Though, obviously very enthusiastic about high speed rail, Collenette quickly added, "The hardest part (of selling this idea) is to convince my colleagues especially with Air Canada just going into receivership." He de«:ribed tiie commitinent made ttiree years ago by the Canadian government to provkJe $400 million over a five year period for new locomotives, station refurbishing,

and the purchase of 139 surplus Renais­sance cars which had been intended for use on overnight ti-ains tiirough ttie Channel Tun­nel between cities in Great Britain and conti­nental Europe.

The ITI at the University of Denver is one of two national centers for ttie stijdy of intermo­dal ti-ansportation in the US. Its interdisdpli-nary program provkles instruction for bolh undergraduate and graduate stijdents. For more information, please visit the ITI web site: www.du.eduAransportation

AARP Supports Rail

The national organization originally known as tiie American Assodation of Retired Per­sons dedded to promote a national pas­senger rail system as one of its legislative Priorities for 2003. The AARP Public Po-icies Book dedares:

"Passenger rail is another mobility option for midlife and older people who travel both wittiin congested regional corridors and bet­ween cities separated by long distances. Congress should support nationvwde pas-seriger rail sendee that is integrated and co­ordinated witii regional, state and local pas­senger rail; and establish a dependable funding mechanism tiiat ensures continuing passenger rail service."

Stations Reopen

Amtrak stations which will once again be staffed seven days a week beginning April 28 indude Lamy, NM, Lincoln, NE, and Grand Junction and La Junta, CO. Raton, NM will have staffing from May 1 to Sep­tember 30. These stations will now be able to handle checked baggage as well as tick­eting.

Board Meetings

The ColoRail Board meels tiie second Monday of every month at 6PM at tfie Bi­cycle Colorado office, 2nd floor, Union Sta­tion. All members are welcome to attend.

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R^se jo inus: Send this form and a checl< for ten dollars (annual dues) payable to "ColoRail" to:

ColoRail P.O. Box 480452

Denver, CO 80248

Name:

Address:

City: State: Z\P Code:,

Telephone, with area code:

E-mail Address:

Your membership dues pays for:

• The ColoRail Passenger (newsletter) published in January, May, and September • Rail news updates via e-mail reports • Leaflets, brochures, web site • Promotion of rail transit and intercity rail • Three general rriembership meetings per year

As advocates for passenger rail, our members:

• Follow federal, state, and \oc8A legislative rail initiatives • Contact e l ^ e d officials to support rail service • Work with the Colorado Department of Transportation, Regional Transportation

District, and other agencies to expand rail passenger services • Participate in advisory groups and public fomms on rail issues • Contact the media to promote rail projects • Work with Amtrak to promote rail and rail related activities • Coordinate rail advocacy activities with the National Association of Railroad

Passengers (NARP) as well as with rail associations in neightxjring states • Coordinate passenger rail activities with other consumer, environmental and pro-

transitorganizations • Educate the public on the benefits and advantages of rail travel .

Please see our web site at <www.colorail.org> for further Information

Annual Board Elect ions

Coiorail's Nomination and Elections has selected a slate of candidates for membership approval at the May 31 meeting at the Englewood Library. The slate includes the following members who will be elected for two year terms. Last year, the membership approved a Bylaws change which added representatives from northeast, southeast, and westem Colorado to the annual election of four regular Board memtsers.

John Ayer - Frederick (representing NE Colorado) Jo Campt)ell - Denver Mark Reever - Cedaredge (representing the Westem Slope) Ron Vander Kooi - Anrada Hugh Wilson - Lakewood Don Zielesch - Denver

The committee was noi able to bcate a candkiate for the Board who resides in soutfieast Cotorado. ColoRail memt)ers may nominate themselves or any other member for the Board with his or her consent at the May 31 meeting. The new Board members will join the foitowing indivkiuals whose terms expire in 2004:

Jon Esty - Denver Daryl Kinton - Englewood Ira Schrelber - Aurora Joe Tempel - Morrison

ColoRail Passenger P.O. Box 4 8 0 4 5 2 Denver , CO 8 0 2 4 8

T O :

Robert W. Rynerson 3948 King S t r e e t Denver CO 80211-1932