Trains could return to Colorado’s Tennessee Pass, rumble through Leadville under pair of proposals

It’s been 24 years since trains rumbled through the tunnel atop Tennessee Pass. That could change as interest in the dormant Tennessee Pass Line between Cañon City and Dotsero grows. A fledgling railway project in Utah’s Uinta Basin and a billionaire New York City developer with thousands of acres of wheat and an existing rail operation in southeastern Colorado are circling the tracks, hoping to revive the state’s 208-mile transmountain railway. If either get their wish, trains carrying freight, crude oil and, possibly, passengers, could be rolling through the Royal Gorge, Salida, Browns Canyon, Buena Vista, Leadville, Minturn, Avon, Eagle and Gypsum. The Surface Transportation Board that safeguards the nation’s rail network has spent the last three months working with the Tennessee Pass Line owner Union Pacific as the longtime rail operator negotiates with suitors for the stretch of railroad it idled in 1996. While few of the players are talking, the filings with the transportation board are telling...MORE