passenger rail

A date that Pacific Northwest train riders and advocates have long awaited is finally nigh. Amtrak’s sleek, amenity-packed new trains will debut on the Cascades intercity route on Sept. 30.

The fate of a decades-long effort to restore intercity passenger rail service to the Front Range is now in the hands of Colorado voters.

If voters approve a sales-tax ballot measure later this year to fund the Colorado Connector passenger rail service, two daily round trips would be offered along the full 190-mile route from Pueblo to Fort Collins within five years, according to a plan unveiled by state officials Monday.

Colorado lawmakers are advancing legislation to dramatically narrow the scope of the state’s Front Range Passenger Rail District ahead of an expected vote in November to fund the long-awaited intercity line.

House Bill 848 would create a “Big Sky Rail Account” within the state special revenue fund. It would appropriate $2 million annually to the new rail account and would come from a tax on certain railroad cars.

Board members overseeing Colorado’s efforts to restore intercity passenger rail service along the Front Range signaled this week that they plan to wait until 2026 to ask voters to fund the project.

A meeting of the Front Range Passenger Rail Commission was another indication that Amtrak is almost certain to be selected as the service’s operator.

A panel of state and local officials will decide later this month whether it’s full steam ahead on a 2024 ballot measure that would ask voters to fund a new passenger rail service along the Front Range with a small sales tax hike — or to hit the brakes and wait until 2026.

Colorado lawmakers gave initial approval on Wednesday to a bill that would provide a $57 million annual boost to the state’s efforts to develop a passenger rail system, paid for by a new fee on rental cars.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and the nation’s top railroad official joined other state and local leaders in Denver on Wednesday to mark the completion of a “very important step” in the long-running effort to restore passenger rail service between most of the state’s largest cities.