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The Southwest Chief runs between Chicago and LA, via Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff. It approaches Wichita within 25 miles, but bypasses it to run west
by niftich 8y ago
The Southwest Chief runs between Chicago and LA, via Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff. It approaches Wichita within 25 miles, but bypasses it to run west for ~350 miles across rural Kansas and Colorado, serving several small towns, and forming a significant transportation backbone. Thereafter, between La Junta, CO (east of Pueblo, CO) and Lamy, NM (adjacent to Santa Fe, NM), the Southwest Chief runs over track owned by BNSF that the freight railroad no longer uses. This lattermost stretch is the most troublesome section, and the topic of much of the article.
BNSF has offered [1] to host this train over a different route that it actively uses -- the Southern Transcon. Using the Southern Transcon would add direct service to Wichita, Amarillo, Clovis, and Vaughn, but would bypass southwest Kansas, southeast Colorado, and northeast New Mexico. Doing so would also remove direct service from Albuquerque and put it even further from Santa Fe. If it weren't for the Albuquerque complication, this would be a pretty good route.
Amtrak has, under its previous leadership, worked with the governments of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, and various localities along the route to solicit funding for continuing the service over its original route. It also got some federal grants. Previous CEOs were staunchly supportive of continuing long-distance service. The new CEO, significantly less so. Representatives from these states were caught unaware by his new approach, and now those matching funds could be in question.
The Southwest Chief is a notable cross-country service, but it's also the transportation backbone of southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado. In my opinion, KS and CO, together with Amtrak and BNSF, should investigate a service between eastern Kansas (e.g. Wichita or KC) and Denver, serving many of the same rural towns of both, but also the major cities of Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Denver in Colorado. The track is owned by BNSF and is in good shape, and would provide service to new markets on a less fraught route. New Mexico should investigate a solution that works for them, which may or may not include more transportation options from Las Vegas, NM, to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and working with Texas to explore routes towards Lubbock and Dallas.
[1] https://www.codot.gov/about/southwest-chief-commission/swchief-interim-leg-sub-comm-110614-v8-final https://www.codot.gov/about/southwest-chief-commission/swchi...
- cozzyd 8y agoNM already has commuter rail between Alberquerque (and Santa Fe) and Belen, where the Southern Transcon reaches. In a world where Amtrak LD trains ran on time, the schedules could be adjusted for a convenient transfer making it not so bad for Albuquerque.
- chrissnell 8y agoI live in Manhattan, Kansas and man, do I wish we had Amtrak service to Denver! It would be fantastic to board a train here in E. Kansas after dinner and wake up on the Front Range. We have a track--I'm nearly certain that it's BNSF-owned--that runs right through town. It doesn't seem heavily used, maybe 3-4 trains daily, but the trains run fast and are long. Most are made up of bulk grain cars but there are some mixed trains, too, with containers and boxcars and even the occasional wind turbine blade train. Surely this track is good enough for passenger service.
- jessaustin 8y agoManhattan, as Kansas's most important college town, is perfectly emblematic of Kansas's screwed-up transport routes. Interstate 70 passes ten miles south of Manhattan, through barren prairie without a gas station for 25 miles in either direction. (ask me how I know!) It's not as though somebody decided there was something more important to visit at that particular latitude; they just decided not to go through Manhattan. When I must drive through Kansas I typically take US-54 instead. That road actually transits inhabited areas. The same moron who designed I-70 must have drawn up the Amtrak routes too. Traveling from Kansas City to Denver? Why the hell would anyone do that? If you're in Kansas City, you must want to go to La Junta CO, to smell those stockyards. (Literally, that's all the town has. Stockyards. Maybe two restaurants? Also tumbleweeds.) Kansas is sort of like Siberia, in that fifty years from now when the population has completely collapsed it will be recolonized by more visionary people from more visionary places. No I'm not talking about Johnson County.
- jessaustin 8y agoD'oh! Of course I meant longitude...
- OldHand2018 8y ago> The Southwest Chief is a notable cross-country service, but it's also the transportation backbone of southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado. In my opinion, KS and CO, together with Amtrak and BNSF, should... Stop right there. Colorado and Kansas should, together, buy the 219 mile segment that BNSF no longer uses and no longer wants to maintain. They can then hand off management of the segment to Amtrak and leave BNSF completely out of it. Back in 2012, the Republican-controlled, car-loving state of Michigan bought a 135 mile segment from Norfolk Southern. At this time, over 90% of the Chicago-Detroit Amtrak service in Michigan runs on publicly-owned rail (Amtrak owns another large segment). The Michigan Department of Transportation maintains the line for 110 mph service. There is no reason that Kansas and Colorado can't do the same. It's just a lack of ambition.
- dreamcompiler 8y agoGood idea. New Mexico needs to be included too. There's probably more of this track segment in NM than in Colorado.
- patrickg_zill 8y ago"but it's also the transportation backbone of southwest Kansas and southeast Colorado" What exactly do you mean when you say this? How many people per day on average, use the train to travel this area vs. using cars?