January 28, 2021
STB Extends Uinta Basin Railway DEIS Comment Period Written by Marybeth Luczak, Executive Editor
The STB’s Office of Environmental Analysis (OEA) issued the Draft EIS for the proposed Uinta Basin Railway in late October 2020.
The Surface Transportation Board (STB) is extending until Feb. 12 the comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed 85-mile Uinta Basin Railway in Utah. Eagle County, Colo., requested the extension on Jan. 25 due to concerns about the Tennessee Pass Line in Colorado.
According to the STB’s Office of Environmental Analysis (OEA) which issued the Draft EIS for the proposed Uinta Basin Railway in late October Eagle County stated “stakeholders in Colorado are concerned that rail traffic from the Uinta Basin Railway, including unit trains carrying crude oil, could travel on the Tennessee Pass Line if both the proposed construction and operation of the U
The Tennessee Pass rail line along the Eagle River, I-70 and Highway 6 in Dowd Junction.
Warren Zevon sang it best: “Send lawyers, guns and money,” he bellowed in his hit song of the same title. He might have thrown in “public affairs consultants and politicians” had he been referring to the Colorado railroad wars shaping up over the long-dormant Tennessee Pass Line.
The guns may not be necessary as Colorado Pacific Railroad takes on Colorado Midland Pacific in parallel bids to revamp the long-languishing line that bisects Eagle County, but the lawyers are already making bank, with a big Denver firm set to start billing both Avon and Eagle County.
Daily file photo
A Dec. 31 deal between Union Pacific Railroad and the Colorado, Midland & Pacific Railway Company is already generating opposition.
The biggest player among the opponents is the Colorado Pacific Railway, a firm that hauls grain in eastern Colorado and western Kansas. The U.S. Surface Transportation Board in March of 2020 rejected Colorado Pacific’s offer to purchase the line. At the time, the bid was rejected as incomplete.
Colorado Pacific owner Stefan Soloviev, who also has large agricultural holdings in eastern Colorado under the company name KCVN, said in a phone conversation he wants the line to haul grain more easily from eastern Colorado to western markets.
Union Pacific tracks along the Eagle River through Dowd Junction.
Colorado Pacific Railroad on Saturday announced it will challenge a deal between Union Pacific and Rio Grande Pacific to possibly rehabilitate the Tennessee Pass Line and offer passenger and freight service through Eagle County.
In a brief press release, Hayden Soloviev, Vice Chairman of New York-based Solow Building Company and Crossroads Agriculture – the parent companies of Colorado Pacific Railroad – made its plans known Saturday afternoon after Rio Grande Pacific subsidiary Colorado, Midland & Pacific Railway Company announced its deal with UP on Thursday.
Here’s the statement from Soloviev in its entirety:
Colorado Midland & Pacific strikes deal with UP to run trains on Tennessee Pass
Tennessee Pass Tunnel.
Colorado, Midland & Pacific Railway Company, a subsidiary of Rio Grande Pacific, issued the following press release on a deal it’s struck with Union Pacific to possibly operate future passenger and freight rail service on the dormant Tennessee Pass Line through Eagle County.
In November, a Rio Grande Pacific representative told RealVail.com that the company was working on a deal with Union Pacific that would include passenger service. This followed an offer earlier in the month by competing Colorado Pacific Railroad to run a year-round, round-trip, daily passenger train from Pueblo to Minturn. Now here’s the full Colorado Midland press release from Thursday, Dec. 31: