CO: New Colorado passenger rail project would cover old footprint

In 1900, an adventurous tourist could buy one train ticket in Chicago that would take them all the way to the top of Pikes Peak.

The first long leg might take them through the Eastern Plains, stopping at towns that owe their existence to the whims of the railroad builders. Just as Pikes Peak came into view in the distance, the traveler would have about 15 hurried minutes to make the “Limon Shuffle” between trains heading to Denver or Colorado Springs.

Stepping off the platform at a noisy, bustling downtown Colorado Springs train station, the traveler would walk to their electric streetcar connection, a system that ferried passengers to all the city’s major neighborhoods. The line would drop them at a terminal at the base of Ruxton Avenue, where their last short trek to the Cog Railway station would begin.

That version of Colorado Springs is hard to imagine now, says Mel McFarland, secretary of the Colorado Midland Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Technological advancements – and the preferences of transportation planners – left rail travel squarely in the past by the end of WWII.

“There’s one word: the automobile,” he said.

Generations later, a part of history might be on track to return.

As early as this fall, Front Range voters could see a ballot question to fund the expansion of passenger rail from Pueblo to Fort Collins. The new train scheme would look much like the old one: passenger and commercial freight traffic would share existing rail lines owned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific.

Interest, positive and skeptical, has been high. According to the Front Range Passenger Rail District, over 18,000 people voted on possible names for the new service within 72 hours of the online survey’s posting earlier this month. A Colorado Springs town hall on the project drew a large crowd last month, while another is scheduled for this week.

If the project, nearly 20 years in the works, comes to pass, Colorado Springs might see a return of a historical transportation option.

According to McFarland, Colorado Springs was originally built around rail traffic. Hotels, restaurants, and other businesses catered to the ebb and flow of foot traffic at the turn of the 20th century, when Colorado Springs grew as a health tourism destination.

“You look at old pictures of Colorado Springs, there were tons and tons of people on the streets,” he said.

With the advent of the automobile, the city started to sprawl north and east. Downtown emptied of commerce, especially during the age of a later 20th-century invention.

“The big cry back then was we need malls, now those malls are dying and people are coming back downtown,” said McFarland.

At the same time, trends in freight traffic changed. The volume of coal transported on Colorado railroads fluctuated and ultimately began to decline through the 20th century. The mining industry in Cripple Creek, which once supported three different rail lines, no longer used any by 1950.

The passenger transfer that animated the small town of Limon for decades slowed to a trickle of commercial freight trains.

“A lot of the main businesses were right here by the train tracks and the depot,” said Sharick Wade, operations manager for the Limon Heritage Museum.

Proponents of passenger rail service returning to Colorado Springs point out increasing congestion on Interstate 25 and the need for accessible travel options. The project also has limitations: traditional rail is slower and less flexible than auto traffic.

McFarland said women used to bring their laundry in off the line to avoid railyard grime in the west Colorado Springs neighborhood where he grew up. He feels that, with increasing public interest in passenger lines and a decline in freight traffic, the city is ripe for a rail resurgence.

“I think it’s in the ideal place for it right now,” he said.

The big infrastructure lift for the return of north-south passenger rail is not the tracks themselves, but the stations. Pueblo has published a $30 million-plus plan for renovating its historic train station, but Colorado Springs would need to start from scratch.

The most recent review projects a station near America the Beautiful Park, just a short walk from the original depot behind the Antlers Hotel. The ballot measure plan includes funding for cities to build parking and public transportation around the new train connections: Colorado Springs would get about $80 million.

The Front Range Passenger Rail District is hoping to get a $900 million starter service running north out of Denver by 2029, based on an existing taxpayer funding stream. If a sales tax ballot measure is successful with district voters, then a Colorado Springs station could be in the works before 2031.

The district’s next town hall is scheduled from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Thursday at Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center.

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