It’s looking likely that heated train cars loaded with a waxy crude oil will be rolling through Colorado after the Forest Service last week rejected objections to the proposed new rail line in a section of roadless forest in Utah. “We are going to continue to fight this terrible project with every tool available to […]
Union Pacific
Posted inNews, Outsider, Transportation
Trains will carry “waxy crude” oil through Colorado every day after Utah approves new railway
The Surface Transportation Board’s recent approval of a new 88-mile railroad in Utah’s Uinta Basin has spiked concerns that daily trains loaded with heated crude oil will be traveling along Colorado’s river corridors. “It’s a ticking carbon bomb,” said Michael Kunkel, whose Friends of Browns Canyon last summer successful campaigned to block an expedited proposal […]
Posted inNews, Outdoors, Outsider, Transportation
The final phase of restoration in Glenwood Canyon turns to debris-choked Colorado River
GLENWOOD CANYON — Andrew Knapp leans over the railing of Interstate 70 in Glenwood Canyon and scowls at a jumble of rocks clogging the Colorado River. Those piercing piles of boulders — swept down the canyon walls in a cataclysmic rainstorm on July 29 — were rubbing against the retaining wall beneath the highway when […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Newsletters, Outsider, Transportation
An upgraded Grand Junction rail yard could accelerate Western Slope economic development
What if something as simple as getting freight trains to stop for a moment in Grand Junction could keep businesses and jobs on the Western Slope, support Grand Valley economic-development and reduce truck traffic on Interstate 70? “It would be huge; an absolute game-changer for the Western Slope,” if rail owners Union Pacific and Burlington […]
Posted inBusiness, Economy, Environment, Transportation
New plans for rail traffic over Colorado’s Tennessee Pass spark protest from grain-hauling competitor
The Rio Grande Pacific Corp., based in Fort Worth, Texas, has the lease to run trains on the long-dormant lines between Cañon City and Dotsero. But it will be many years before passenger cars and tankers filled with the freight-mover’s crude oil traverse Tennessee Pass — and not just because costs to fix the line […]