HomeMy WebLinkAboutNews Release - Mail Packet - 10/27/2015 - Article From Darin Atteberry Dated October 13, 2015 From Coloradoan.Com Titled Fort Collins Train Crossing Will Soon See ReliefFort Collins train crossing will soon see
relief
Katie de la Rosa, Kdelarosa@coloradoan.com3:20 p.m. MDT October 13, 2015
A $14 million project is rerouting a bulk of traffic to Greeley.
(Photo: Coloradoan library)
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Rejoice Fort Collins motorists, by early next year the number of trains passing through –
and blocking – Lemay and Riverside avenues will be reduced by 55 percent.
Yes. You read that right.
OmniTRAX, a Denver-based company that manages Great Western Railway, is working
to restore an inactive railway from Windsor to Greeley. The $14 million project will reroute
half of its train traffic away from Fort Collins, OmniTRAX CEO Kevin Shuba said Monday.
"What is happening on Lemay won't still be happening," said David Arganbright,
OmniTRAX vice president of governmental affairs.
October 22, 2015
TO: Mayor & City Council
FROM: Darin Atteberry
FYI /sek
Instead of Great Western connecting with the Union Pacific Railroad in Fort Collins,
which regularly causes extensive delays at Lemay and Riverside, the trains will connect
in Greeley, Shuba said. Instead of making the 19-mile trip to Fort Collins, operators will
be looking at a 7-mile trek to Greeley.
Great Western and Union Pacific are working with the Federal Railroad Administration to
get the change approved. Construction on the track should be complete in November,
but it won't be operational until January at the earliest and April at the latest.
Some trains will continue to use the stretch of Fort Collins track because Great Western
also switches with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway, which has a switchyard at
Lemay Avenue and Vine Drive.
On the track that runs parallel to Riverside Avenue, one train passes each day, Union
Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said. Still, there's an average of nearly three delays daily,
with slow speed and switching being factors. The average wait time at Riverside and
Lemay was 5 minutes, 25 seconds in 2014, said city traffic engineer Joe Olson. But some
Coloradoan readers have often complained of waits that reach upwards of 35 minutes.
In 2007, trains came through town on this track just three times a week.
News of this project resurfaced during a meeting of state and local elected officials and
railroad representatives at the Coloradoan on Monday to discuss train issues in Northern
Colorado.