What happened to Tennessee Pass?

[MidlandMike]

I agree that the Denver-Oakland trackage rights are most critical to  BNSF's Denver area operations, especially since they pulled back from Raton Pass.  Denver is the largest city between the Missouri River and the Bay Area, and they need the trackage rights to fully serve this important market.  On their system map, the line also fills in an otherwise large blank spot.

http://www.bnsf.com/customers/where-can-i-ship/

I noticed also that the map indicates they utilize both the Donner Pass and Feather River routes.

[daveklepper]

But note that they cannot run double-stacks over this route.   They could if they could buy Tennessee Pass!

[diningcar]

The Raton Pass line and the Tennessee Pass line are not, and will not be, in the plans of BNSF.

Trackage rights over UP take care of their northern CA needs and connection  to the southern Transcon is achieved through the Las Animas Jct. to Amarillo line.

 They know what their greatest traffic potential is and have planned to spend their money to maximize those areas (both geographic and traffic) while 'passing' on locations and traffic with insignificant potential. The BNSF definately has a PLAN. 

[daveklepper]

As I posted before, the only hope for Tennesse Pass is if double stack traffic on either the UP or the BNSF or both together reach such a point that an emergency detour route makes economic sense.   I agree it does not do so now, and may not for many years.   But I would not be surprised if it did occur within the lifetime of people reading this.

[YoHo1975]

daveklepper

As I posted before, the only hope for Tennesse Pass is if double stack traffic on either the UP or the BNSF or both together reach such a point that an emergency detour route makes economic sense.   I agree it does not do so now, and may not for many years.   But I would not be surprised if it did occur within the lifetime of people reading this.

 

I agree with this general sentiment. no one knows what the future holds and I guarantee that were we all sitting around a table discussing 2011 30 years ago, we would never have guessed at all the things that have happened correctly. 

[MP173]

Are there any special operating issues with stacks thru an area such as TP?  Obviously...have great braking system.  Anything else?

 

ed

[Falcon48]

No one may know what the future holds.  But I think it's a pretty good bet that the TP line isn't going to be reopened for double-stack traffic.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, the TP route would have to have an eastern outlet at Pueblo other than the front range route to Denver to even be useable as a through route (for intermodal or anything else).  And why would UP (or BNSF) put money into reopening the TP route for double-stack traffic rather than spending the money to increase capacity on their primary intermodal routes, whch are far superior to the TP route?  Mountain railroads may be photogenic, but they are operating nightmares.

[MidlandMike]

When considering scenarios for what external traffic might utilize Tennessee Pass, the likelihood is usually diminished when one considers the surrounding superior routes.  A more likely probability would be from internal traffic which would need to travel the route.  

The only substantiated potential local traffic adjacent to the TP is the moly from the reopened Climax Mine.  The company's estimated production would only fill about 1 carload per day, which alone would not support reopening the line.

However, the TP would be a natural relief valve to the Moffat route if that line became clogged.  The local traffic that originates on the Moffat is predominantly coal, so the question is, if expanded coal production would exceed line capacity?  Coal production volume had been climbing into the 90s, but leveled off as lowering natural gas prices made that fuel attractive in light of stiffer environmental regulation.  Then came the recession and production fell.  New baseload coal plants also face opposition because of sticker shock to the ratepayers who would bear the cost.  Even when plants get thru the permit process, financing is a problem with investors skittish over potential new environmental mandates.  Nevertheless, investors can be found for renewable energy projects with their favorable tax incentives.  Wind projects make a good fit with natural gas fired peaking plants.  The US Energy Information Administration estimates the present drop in production will bottom out in a couple of years and then grow slowly, but also acknowledging the uncertain environmental picture.  It has been noted earlier in this thread that the Denver area utility is in negotiations with regulators that may replace a substantial amount of their coal (coming off the Moffat) with natural gas.

While the domestic coal picture is muddled, the export situation is somewhat different.  The export market is only a small part of US production but growing.  Exports were 6% of total production in 2009 and 8% in 2010.  This year looks even better.  On top of expected growth was a boost caused by catastrophic flooding impacting Australia.s exports.  While US exports to Europe have been steadily growing, export growth to Asia has been more "explosive" as had been noted by someone earlier in this thread.  Exports to Asia tripled in 2010 0ver 2009.  Although they were only equal to about half the exports to Europe, they may exceed that this year with current growth rates.

While the US is the undisputed giant of proven coal reserves, China is the #1 coal producer, with three times the output of the US (#2).  Asia is in the proximity of the three largest exporters of coal: Australia, Indonesia and Russia.  Most of the coal the US exports is high valued metallurgical grade used in steel mills.  Perhaps the best met coal in Colorado is from the Coal Basin above Redstone.  It was served by a turn of the century narrow gauge that is gone a hundred years now.  The standard gauge connection thru Redstone (CR&SJ) came out about WWII.  Coal was sometimes trucked to a loader at Carbondale on the Aspen branch into the 90s, but that branch was pulled about 5 years ago.  Some of the North Fork mines reportedly contain met coal.  Unfortunately the traffic is likely to go west on the double tracked grade over the Wasatch, and away from the Moffat and TP.  A Colorado mine that is shipping met coal is the reopened New Elk Mine west of Trinidad.  The coal is trucked between those two points, but the talk is that they will rebuild the former C&W.  It is interesting to speculate if they would ship over the TP if it was open, vs. the steeper Raton Pass grade or the long backtrack to the Texas panhandle.

Unfortunately I don't think that coal traffic growth on the Moffat can be counted as a sure thing.

[lone geep]

So to sum it up, UP isn't taking up the rails because it would cost more than it would be worth. The mining wouldn't be enough to reopen it and it wouldn't make a good through route because there isn't a good outlet at Pueblo. Thanks for clearing this up.

[RockIslandRookie]

[samfp1943]

Interesting topic: 

      As long as the UPRR is going to leave it alone.      Seems like the best use for it would be to have NARCOA: http://www.narcoa.org/  to run some rail car excursions over it?

 

Just a thought!

[lone geep]

I know this is an old thread, but I have one more question. Since there is quite a bit of steel sitting around in terms of rails, why isn't UP taking up the rails between the grade crossings since it doesn't appear that trains will be traversing it for a long time?

[mudchicken]

Dumb move and the roadmaster/MTM in that country has pitifully few people. Want steel? scrap a locomotive.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Those rails may be an old, obsolete, or incompatible section, and/ or worn too much to be worthwhile relaying anyplace else after the costs of removal and transportation to the new location are added in.  Right now scrap steel is at a more nomal price - about $240/ net ton around here - so there's no great bonanza there.   

But more likely is that if and when that line is ever restored to service, it is so much easier to get MOW equipment and work trains in and do their thing when there are 2 rails at about the right gage to start with.  Even if the ties are almost all rotted, that's still enough to support some basic lightweight MOW equipment to first replace just a few ties at long intervals to allow the heavier and more capable MOW equipment in to replace the rest of the ties, add ballast and surface, repalce rail, etc.  In other words, an existing track makes it a lot easier to 'bootstrap' your way back to a functioning rail line.  But if the track is gone, then it has to be replaced either all by truck - very tough backing them up on a narrow ROW on the side of a mountain like that, or from the advancing end of a reconstructed track - which is doable but expensive and cumbersome, and depends on very specilaized equipment. 

As with many things, restoration is just a lot easier to do if you have the existing, both to use as a guide and to physically support the work.

- Paul North.