Does Colorado love the Winter Park ski train enough to support a rail line to Steamboat?

WINTER PARK — A few inches of fresh snow had already piled up as we waited to board the train, fat flakes melting in our hair and soaking our hats. 

I’m sure Berthoud Pass was getting dicey at that point in the afternoon, and clogged with ski traffic. But on this day, I didn’t care. The main focus of the moment was the plan my friend and I had just concocted to immediately head to the snack bar upon boarding the Amtrak Winter Park Express instead of going right to our seats.

We figured plenty of other ski train passengers were also ready for happy hour. We were not wrong. 

A line of festive people, looking a bit wiped out after seven hours on the slopes but still smiling, had the same idea. One man bought a 12-pack of beer and a flat, the snack bar’s entire supply, of whiskey shooters for his crew. My friend and I bought almonds and red wine, which we sipped in our seats from cute plastic cups with stems. 

The two-hour ride back to Union Station in Denver felt short and relaxing, with our feet out of our ski boots and dusky views of forest and mountains out the window. 

It was our first time on the train and we decided then that we would do it again and bring more friends. We also hoped we would someday ride it all the way to Steamboat for a long ski weekend. 

That’s actually not far-fetched, though it could take a few years. 

Colorado owns the Moffat Tunnel, the 6.2-mile passage through the Rocky Mountains that comes out near Winter Park. The tracks, owned by Union Pacific, go far beyond Winter Park, through Fraser, Granby and Steamboat and all the way up to Craig in northwestern Colorado. But passenger trains haven’t traveled the route since 1968, back when the train was called the Yampa Valley Mail because it brought the mail to the tiny towns along the way. 

Freight trains have used the tracks since then, but coal production is waning in northwestern Colorado and soon will stop entirely. Freight trains through the tunnel have decreased to about six a day, down from 30.

That leaves room for Gov. Jared Polis’ big plans for passenger rail from Denver to Craig. 

Skiers could ride not just to Winter Park but head all the way to Steamboat, then hop off at Hot Sulphur Springs for a soak on the way home. Commuters who live in Hayden or Craig could ride the rails to their jobs in Steamboat. Yampa Valley residents could travel to Denver without worrying much about snowstorms on Interstate 70. 

The governor talks like it’s going to happen. Members of the town council in Hayden, just down the road from Steamboat, are so “full steam ahead” they already know where the town will build its train platform. And the Colorado Department of Transportation is working up plans for a budget — likely somewhere in the zone of hundreds of millions of dollars — to build train stations and the necessary upgrades to make the route fit for passengers, including fewer bumps that would spill a commuter’s coffee or a skier’s Coors. 

In one of the biggest signs yet that this plan will happen, Colorado leaders announced in late December that they were negotiating a new, “historic” 25-year lease of the Moffat Tunnel with Union Pacific. The railroad, facing declining profits because of coal reduction, approached Colorado asking for a partnership that would extend passenger rail into the northern mountains.

“This is a big step forward in making Mountain Rail from Denver to Craig a reality,” Polis posted on Facebook when he announced the new lease. “Passenger rail on this corridor will relieve traffic to one of Colorado’s iconic mountain communities and provide safe, reliable, affordable transportation options for tourists and skiers as well as workers traveling along the corridor.” 

It’s a LONG day, so it won’t replace the season of I-70 trips

Phase one of the state’s plan is to pump up interest in the Winter Park ski train so that Coloradans will support Mountain Rail. 

It seems like the plan is working. With a drop in ticket prices this year, and an increase in operations to five days per week, ticket sales are up 29% over last year. The weekend trains are 90% full, while weekdays are running 40%-60% full, CDOT spokesman Tim Hoover said. 

The ski train is a partnership between Amtrak and the Winter Park Resort, which is operated by Alterra Mountain Co. and owned by the city of Denver. For the first time, CDOT pledged to contribute up to $2.8 million this season to subsidize ticket prices, the final amount determined by how ticket sales go. The train is running Thursday-Monday, an increase from its previous Friday-Sunday. And ticket prices — which fluctuate depending on demand — are as low as $19 one way, which is a 40% drop. 

“Absolutely, they are strategically connected, 100%. The idea of buying down fares was to generate excitement,” said Paul DesRocher, director of CDOT’s transit and rail division. 

I paid $36 each way, including an extra few dollars for a refundable ticket in case the day I picked ended up being during a subzero arctic blast. It was worth the money for a fun excursion to Winter Park, but, as someone who regularly drives over Berthoud to ski, I wouldn’t spend that much more than once or twice a season. The drive from Denver is about 130 miles round trip, so that’s roughly $20 in gas. 

The other reason it’s taken me so many years to ride the ski train is that it seems like such a long day — the train departs from Union Station at 7 a.m. and returns about 7 p.m. That means you’re on the slopes or in a lodge, paying for a crazy-expensive cup of chili or eating a frozen protein bar, from about 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. But it actually seemed to fly by, in part because we befriended some people at lunch who asked us to join their iPhone karaoke singalong. 

The train seems like a great option for a weekend, or for travelers who fly into Denver and don’t mind not having a car in the mountains. Winter Park has regular shuttles from the ski hill to its downtown shops, restaurants and condos, so it’s doable.

First phase of 230-mile corridor by end of 2026

The transportation department received $3 million in state funding in 2023 to create a plan for a 230-mile Mountain Rail corridor. The state is expected to release the details as soon as March or at least by May, when it finishes negotiations with Union Pacific. 

The buildout would come in three sections, the first going from Winter Park to Granby by the end of 2026, DesRocher said. That section of the tracks is already used by Amtrak’s California Zephyr, which then heads west. 

The next phase in the proposed plan is a local train from Oak Creek to Craig, carrying commuters through the Yampa Valley. And the third phase is the route running the entire corridor from Denver to Craig. There is no timeline yet for the last two phases, DesRocher said. 

CDOT has been holding open houses along the route, promising to work with communities to help revive old depots and find space for modern platforms. Steamboat could eventually have two stations, one near the old depot downtown and a second next to the ski resort, DesRocher said. 

Towns could incorporate depots that haven’t been used for train passengers in decades into revitalized blocks around the new stations. The old Steamboat depot, built in 1909, is now an art center, and the depot in Hayden is a museum. Hot Sulphur Springs’ depot is about 50 feet from the hot springs resort. 

A Mountain Rail system would revive small-town economies, sparking new shops, restaurants and housing next to train depots, DesRocher said. Part of the state’s goal is to “induce development around those stations,” he said. “Somebody is going to be taking notice. I’m sure people are already taking notice.”

Besides building stations, the track will need some upgrades. It’s more than 100 years old, and even though it’s in good shape for freight trains, there are railroad ties and tracks that will need improvements, DesRocher said. It also will need new technology to meet standards for passenger safety, including an automated system that prevents head-on collisions if the engineer was incapacitated.  

Hayden’s town manager, Mathew Mendisco, is all in. “For Hayden, it will be truly transformational,” he said. 

The town of 2,100 people down-valley from Steamboat gets about 7,000 vehicles per day along Highway 40 — about half going east to Steamboat in the morning and half going west home to Craig after work. Hayden issued 472 speeding tickets last year, compared to about 50 in 2019, and crashes are increasing. 

“The traffic is continuing to get bigger,” he said. “We see this in Hayden every single day because Highway 40 is our main street.” 

Besides the safety reasons, Mendisco is excited about the economic boost to the community that could come with local passenger train services. The tracks run between the town and the Yampa River. 

And Hayden residents are likely to take the train instead of driving three hours to Denver, he said. It took Mendisco four and a half hours to drive home on a recent Friday because it started to snow when he was near Kremmling and the roads turned icy.  

The town is already making plans for a train platform, working out a deal with the owner of the land near the historic depot. A shuttle from the platform to the Yampa Valley Regional Airport, which serves Steamboat, would take about 3 minutes, Mendisco said. 

“We are full steam ahead assuming it is going to occur,” he said. “We are gung-ho, all in.”