Western Railroad Discussion > Colorado Pacific wins SLRG auction

From the Alamosa Valley Courier: https://alamosanews.com/article/colorado-pacific-rr-wins-slrg-auction

On the surface, i think this is good news...

More than on the surface, you now have a buyer who gives a damn about the local economy and
not the price of scrap rail!

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callum_out Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> More than on the surface, you now have a buyer who
> gives a damn about the local economy and
> not the price of scrap rail!
>
> Out 

Until they have to deal with the NIMBY land owners...

PHall Wrote:

>
> Until they have to deal with the NIMBY land
> owners...

In what respects? This is an existing, active line...not something trying to be built or restored to service.

Mike Derrick

Posted from Android

What NIMBY land owners? The only instance of that was the people at La Veta concerned over the use of
local water for steam ops. The rest of the area is agricultural, very agricultural and dependent on the railroad
for their livliehood. 

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Colorado Pacific Railroad has won the auction for the San Luis Rio Grande Railroad with a final winning bid of $10.7 million.OmniTRAX, the only qualified bidder to have made an offer until the last few days, had submitted an original bid of $5.7 million. In a bidding competition that trustee Bill Brandt described as “spirited," the Colorado Pacific’s bid was, in the end, an 85% increase over what OmniTRAX had originally put on the table.

I don't know much about Colorado Pacific, and all my brief attempts at research just point to that attempt to buy the Tennessee Pass line, but I can fairly confidently say they were the preferred choice over OMNITrax.

I am hoping that Colorado Pacific will be a good operator of this line. Omnitrax would have done nothing but run it into the ground.

I am hoping that their agressive legal team will go after UP over the interchange issue at Walsenburg. The Coors barley needs to
move directly to BNSF for delivery to help improve the traffic level.

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UP would then have no  or very little traffic  and  abandon their line to walsenburg, that they have recently rebuilt?

Is there a legal precedent is there for them  be forced sell , or give rights the last couple miles into town?

The government was looking for the guy that started the fire down there, was it the Forbes fire burned the SLRG band shell, and many homes, they cannot find the Danish man now.

The rail on the hill could/does need replacement

 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/22 18:43 by dan.

Thing is that W'Burg is served by both BNSF and UP and the SL&RG is forbidden from interchange with BNSF,
that's contrary to virtually every equal access judgment made in recent years. The fact that UP owns the last
five miles is a moot point and advantageous only to the UP. It would make an interesting case before the SYB.

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So, the UP decides to sell off an underutilized line segment with the caveat that the new short line will only interchange with the UP.  So, the UP sells the line at discount, since they are considering that they will always participate in the line haul.

Then, years later, the short line wants to bypass the UP, and deliver direct to the BNSF.  Might grow the traffic, But not the deal, that the governed the original purchase. 

if the original sale included a BNSF connection, it would have been at a higher price.  

What if the reverse happened?

UP sells line including access to BNSF.  Then years later decides, to close access to the competition.  Would;d anyone, think that was fair or reasonable?

The purchase price was secondary. The original sale was to preclude access to competiton ie the BNSF,
that doesn't pass muster anymore.

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UP allowed BNSF to deliver cars/ trains for storage

Of course, think they'd spend the money to send a crew down there to handle a 5 mile shove?

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The original line was D&RGW.  So when UP acquired the SP (DRGW), there was no competition. It was single line service.  

Class 1's have frequently sold or leased line segments, with the stipulation that they only interchange with the original owner.  Or, they leave out the mileage that would allow a steel I/C.

All of that goes into a line sale decision.