Pioneer Discussion

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Sep 1, 2015
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Planning a trip from Eugene, OR to Laramie, WY next year for a college football game when Oregon plays at Wyoming. Never been to Wyoming so I'm stoked, and will stop by the old Laramie depot.

I know Amtrak did some studies on this years ago, but does anyone know Amtrak's/local governments' position on the Pioneer and if any serious consideration will ever go towards this? Every time I drive through the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon I just see all these little towns with little to no transportation services. Even cities like Boise, Laramie, and Cheyenne could greatly benefit from rail service.

There have been some advocacy groups for this, but nothing as of late. Is there any shot this train comes back? If gulf coast service could return, then I think anything is possible (obviously different factors for both).
 
Lightly populated route. Covers almost all the big towns in Wyoming.(which is what 20-30 people) Some track pull out on one side of Boise. Heavy freight traffic.

Not seeing anything, because it not support by anyone with any type of power. If you can't get the locals to support...
 
There have been some advocacy groups for this, but nothing as of late. Is there any shot this train comes back? If gulf coast service could return, then I think anything is possible (obviously different factors for both).
NARP is still pushing it whenever we can. One thing we have learned from the Gulf Coast is that support really has to come from local mayors, city councils, and business groups. We have a good bunch of rail advocates in eastern Oregon and in Colorado, but we need help in the other parts of the route (Idaho, Utah, Wyoming). If you know anyone who is interested in helping in those areas, please contact me or the NARP office in DC.
 
Laramie, Cheyenne, and Boise city governments have talked up restoration of service within the last decade. I can't think of any names but they might be good bets.
 
Lightly populated route.
Very lightly populated.

Wyoming is the least populated US state with only some 585,000 people in the entire state.

Idaho is 39th with more than 3x the population (1.7M) Wyoming has.

Utah is 31st at about 3M people but 2/3 of the population in Utah are in the Ogden to Provo corridor along Interstate 15.

A very tough sell.
 
I agree...not likely for a long time, at the present state of affairs re Amtrak. If any former route was restored, I would guess the shorter route from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles via Las Vegas, of the former Desert Wind would be more likely to return to service....
 
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I believe a more useful project would be Front Range rail along the BNSF route through Boulder, Longmont, Loveland, Fort Collins, and if Cheyenne is interested, Cheyenne. This is within extreme-commuting range. It could be extended to Laramie via UP if there is sufficient interest from Laramie.

From what I've been able to tell, support for rail in Greeley is anemic, compared to support in Loveland and Fort Collins, both of which are also larger. Boulder is of course huge. Boulder and Longmont have been resentful that they haven't gotten their commuter rail yet; a corridor route here might be politically popular in Colorado as a whole.
 
... a more useful project would be Front Range rail along the BNSF route through Boulder, Longmont, Loveland, Fort Collins, and Cheyenne. This is within extreme-commuting range.

... a corridor route here might be politically popular in Colorado as a whole.
Population growth keeps making a Front Range route more needed every year.

Got to start somewhere, so Denver-Boulder-Longmont-Loveland-Ft Collins-Cheyenne.

I want it to go to Cheyenne because that's close and should be cheap to do, and Wyoming adds another state, two Senators and a House seat, :giggle: , to Amtrak's system.

Then the Front Range train must go south to Colorado Springs (big population and tourists -- Pike's Peak etc), and to Pueblo (enuff population and a campus of Colorado State). However, getting out of Denver will be more complicated than it looks on a map.

Next take the Front Range train to meet the route of the Southwest Chief, most of which in these parts exists for passenger rail. I'm ready to take it to Albuquerque and make a turn south to El Paso to connect to the [/i]Texas Eagle/Sunset Ltd.[/i] Ultimately the Front Range train could be extended El Paso-Tucson-Maricopa-L.A., which gets it to an Amtrak maintenance base.

The Southwest needs a north-south train to link cities like Kansas City, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and others.
 
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Lightly populated route.
Very lightly populated.
Wyoming is the least populated US state with only some 585,000 people in the entire state.

Idaho is 39th with more than 3x the population (1.7M) Wyoming has.

Utah is 31st at about 3M people but 2/3 of the population in Utah are in the Ogden to Provo corridor along Interstate 15.

A very tough sell.
Indeed. No reasonable person would advocate earmarking federal funds for mass transit through a series of hyper rural debtor states. If they want passenger rail so bad (no indication that this has ever been case) they can pay for it themselves.
 
Lightly populated route.
Very lightly populated.
Wyoming is the least populated US state with only some 585,000 people in the entire state.

Idaho is 39th with more than 3x the population (1.7M) Wyoming has.

Utah is 31st at about 3M people but 2/3 of the population in Utah are in the Ogden to Provo corridor along Interstate 15.

A very tough sell.
Indeed. No reasonable person would advocate earmarking federal funds for mass transit through a series of hyper rural debtor states. If they want passenger rail so bad (no indication that this has ever been case) they can pay for it themselves.
No but a selfish Senate Majority Leader would (and did). Well, one hyper rural debtor state. And we're still all paying for North Dakota DOT/Montana DOT.
 
So establish a system where every state pays for passenger rail in the amount of services they receive.

That way Wyoming doesn't have to pay for rail service in Pennsylvania that Wyoming residents will never use.

We're headed in that direction now with all the state funding: may as well make it official at the federal level.
 
So establish a system where every state pays for passenger rail in the amount of services they receive. That way Wyoming doesn't have to pay for rail service in Pennsylvania that Wyoming residents will never use.
The difference being that funding mass transit in densely populated areas of Pennsylvania makes logical sense while funding mass transit in a hyper rural area like Wyoming makes no sense at all. That being said, if you want to balance federal funding so that each state only receives what they pay in dollar-for-dollar that's fine with me. Several pro-rail states would likely see a funding boost while lots of anti-rail states would likely see substantial losses in federal funding.
 
This thread began as a discussion on restoring the Pioneer, a long-distance train. Somehow, it devolved to tying the Pioneer with mass transit funding. Big disconnect. My opinion is that the more city-pairs there are on the system, the better. Using only population as a criterion would kill the Cardinal between Cincinnati and Huntingdon, WV, a topic that's been discussed elsewhere on here and the Empire Builder on the northern tier.
 
Hard to imagine restoring the Pioneer, which I first rode in 1978 when it was Amfleet-equipped.

As for the Boise situation, I haven't been there in a long time but I thought there was still rail continuity Nampa-Boise-Orchard, even if the Boise-Orchard portion is out of service (the Google Maps satellite view indicates that it's used for car storage). The abandoned trackage in Boise was on the north side of the river, but the passenger station was on the south side. Is this not correct? Of course it would take a ton of money to reopen the Boise loop for passenger trains even if the rails are still intact.
 
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What is difficult to understand is that in the early 1900's Cheyenne WY was a growing railroad town with a large busy passenger station. Ranchers, farmers and miners all traveled to the area by train but the train was also the primary shipper of clothing, household goods, farm supplies, fuel and foodstuffs. The population had to be less back then and yet the town supported a railroad. Cheyenne (the state capitol) has had no passenger service since the 1980's so could the demand for service be that low? Cheyenne is only about an hour and a half drive North of Denver. I can see this town becoming part of the front range suburbs one day. Its a clean not congested town on the old Lincoln highway that offers a low stress lifestyle, affordable living and the city has decent shopping.
 
Not clear that Cheyenne produced all that much demand itself. It just happened to be on the UP transcontinental route and was a reasonable division point, and had a whole host of passenger trains passing through anyway. Once UP service ended something special had to be done to serve it just for its own sake. It became an out of the way place in the context of the passenger rail network.
 
From what I've been able to tell, support for rail in Greeley is anemic, compared to support in Loveland and Fort Collins, both of which are also larger. Boulder is of course huge. Boulder and Longmont have been resentful that they haven't gotten their commuter rail yet; a corridor route here might be politically popular in Colorado as a whole.
It's puzzling why Greeley, home to University of Northern Colorado, and having had Amtrak service for many years, would be so 'anemic'...

Besides, a train on the UP line between Denver and Cheyenne would take half the time that one on the BNSF line would....
 
From what I've been able to tell, support for rail in Greeley is anemic, compared to support in Loveland and Fort Collins, both of which are also larger. Boulder is of course huge. Boulder and Longmont have been resentful that they haven't gotten their commuter rail yet; a corridor route here might be politically popular in Colorado as a whole.
It's puzzling why Greeley, home to University of Northern Colorado, and having had Amtrak service for many years, would be so 'anemic'...
Politics. Don't ask me why, because *I don't know why*, but Greeley votes right-wing in the sense of pro-car, pro-truck, anti-rail, anti-pedestrian, while Fort Collins and Loveland vote left-wing in the sense of pro-pedestrian, pro-bicycle, pro-train.
It is what it is. Accept it. Same reason Pueblo is pushing for train service and Colorado Springs won't lift a finger to get it.
 
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Be careful that we as a country do not fall into Balkanization. This " I've got my _____________ to heck with you having it or a reasonable substitute."
 
From what I've been able to tell, support for rail in Greeley is anemic, compared to support in Loveland and Fort Collins, both of which are also larger. Boulder is of course huge. Boulder and Longmont have been resentful that they haven't gotten their commuter rail yet; a corridor route here might be politically popular in Colorado as a whole.
It's puzzling why Greeley, home to University of Northern Colorado, and having had Amtrak service for many years, would be so 'anemic'...
Politics. Don't ask me why, because *I don't know why*, but Greeley votes right-wing in the sense of pro-car, pro-truck, anti-rail, anti-pedestrian, while Fort Collins and Loveland vote left-wing in the sense of pro-pedestrian, pro-bicycle, pro-train.
It is what it is. Accept it. Same reason Pueblo is pushing for train service and Colorado Springs won't lift a finger to get it.
I've lived in Colorado Springs. They'd love a train, but it's not going to be easy to get one into Colorado Springs without a lot of money and they're aware of that, which also makes it a significantly lower priority than Pueblo has it as. Trust me, Colorado Springs has a lot bigger needs than a train.
 
I agree that Front Range rail should be a higher priority than restoring the Pioneer, but I still think that the Pioneer itself has merit. Just to reiterate, Amtrak's 2009 study regarding the Pioneer was sandbagged. Among other issues, the study dismissed routing the train through Boulder as "theoretical," and the study didn't explore the benefits of better scheduling (serving Pocatello at an ungodly hour hurt the original Pioneer).

As much as I want to see the Pioneer restored, right now I would prefer that Amtrak work on boosting ridership on the Zephyr between Reno and Glenwood Springs. There's a lot of untapped ridership potential in northern Utah, where residents are much more accustomed to rail now than they were 20 years ago. It's also worth mentioning that Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the U.S. Calling times for the CZ in SLC are bad, but they're better in Provo (a sizable intermediate market). There's a nice new UTA park and ride lot within walking distance of the Provo Amtrak stop, where passengers can park several days for free. Millenials attending UVU and BYU would be open to taking a scenic train ride through eastern Utah, or taking an overnight train to Reno or Lake Tahoe. However, most of them don't know that's an option, and that's part of the problem.
 
Be careful that we as a country do not fall into Balkanization. This " I've got my _____________ to heck with you having it or a reasonable substitute."
Too late. We've already got that attitude, and that attitude in Idaho (2 Senators) is why we don't have train service in, for instance, Scranton PA.
 
Be careful that we as a country do not fall into Balkanization. This " I've got my _____________ to heck with you having it or a reasonable substitute."
Too late. We've already got that attitude, and that attitude in Idaho (2 Senators) is why we don't have train service in, for instance, Scranton PA.
Actually, attitude in Trenton may have as much or more to do with it than attitude in Idaho in this specific case. But I do agree with your broader point.
 
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