Amtrak train photo from the United Rail Passenger Alliance web site.

Amtrak says that restoring the former Pioneer daily train service between Denver and Seattle would be hugely expensive but it would work “aggressively” to reinstate if federal and state officials can find funding to subsidize it.

Amtrak at the same time throws cold water on the prospects of reinstatement, upsetting advocates of the plan in Colorado and elsewhere.

Amtrak said the farebox recovery ratio of the new Pioneer would be the lowest of all 15 current Amtrak long-distance routes for the route options that have the western end of line in Portland. And the ratio would be the second-lowest of all if service were extended up into Seattle.

The options include making the eastern end either Denver or Salt Lake City. The service would actually extend to Chicago from Denver, but the Pioneer cars would be coupled with the California Zephyr for that segment.

The conclusion is in a draft report to Congress, which mandated the study last year in the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. Prime movers of the study were lawmakers from Idaho and Oregon, where the Pioneer operated between Denver and Portland on a corridor that since 1993 has been without passenger rail service.

“Restoration of the Pioneer would enhance Amtrak’s route network and produce public benefits, but would require significant expenditures for initial capital costs and ongoing operating costs not covered by farebox revenues,” the draft reads.

You can read the draft report here. Amtrak is soliciting comments on the draft by Oct. 1. The final report is due to Congress by Oct. 16. Backers of the Pioneer route are miffed that they are being given a short amount of time to provide input.

Map from Amtrak's draft report shows the route options being studied for resumption of Pioneer service, including Denver to Seattle.

Rail transit advocates in Colorado have joined those in the northwestern states to support restoration, and they have sought backing for a route through northern Colorado along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway corridor through Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins.

Peter Richards of Boulder is part of a coalition of rail advocates working with those in other states to lobby for the Pioneer.

“I have been working with municipalities between Denver and Cheyenne to get this proposed reinstatement of the Amtrak Pioneer train to travel to Cheyenne via Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins as an option, via the BNSF track,” Richards said.

Boulder and Longmont have stated their support.

But the Amtrak study focuses on the former Pioneer route through Greeley on the Union Pacific Railroad. Amtrak says that route is shorter, offers faster speeds and better station access in Cheyenne, and would costs significantly less to prepare for passenger service.

Amtrak figured the ridership on the longest option, Denver to Seattle, would be the highest of all four routings, at 111,000 passengers a year. It would also bring the highest revenue, at $13.1 million.

But it also had the highest annual operating costs, second-highest annual net loss and the highest capital cost to bring the route up to passenger standards, reactivate stations, and other work.

Rail advocates question those figures. The United Rail Passenger Alliance criticized the study as understating the potential and under-programming the service. You can read that group’s latest posting on the issue here.

“The 111,000 figure for ridership is easily low by 25,000 passengers, but, if a second frequency all the way from Chicago to Denver and then a single frequency to Seattle was used because it is a better choice, then a ridership figure of 250,000 to 300,000 is more likely,” the group said in its web posting. “Yes, this would require more equipment, but, that’s the cost of having the burden of meeting consumer demand.

“When you couple realistic passenger mile revenue of 14.5 cents per passenger mile as is found on the California Zephyr with the ridership of a second frequency, suddenly the Pioneer is not only a good idea, but a great idea.”

Local rail advocates say Amtrak would tap larger travel markets by threading through the Front Range cities along the BNSF, including larger college populations in Fort Collins and Boulder, and better facilities that tie in to RTD’s proposed FasTracks corridors.

“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Boulder-Longmont and Fort Collins areas had a combined population of 578,000 in 2007,” Charles Hall of Lopez Island, Wash., said Tuesday in an email to other members of the Pioneer Restoration Organization. “The Greeley area, on the Union Pacific route given preference in the study, had only 243,750. The Boulder-Fort Collins route has 54,000 students at UCB (University of Colorado at Boulder) and CSU (Colorado State University), the Greeley route 13,000 at UNC (University of Northern Colorado). The ridership difference between the two routes would be huge.

You can view the Pioneer Restoration Organization’s web site here.

Hall added: “UP wants $38 million in infrastructure money in return for Pioneer access to the Greeley route. Regional rail plans (Denver-Longmont/RTD and Denver-Fort Collins) call for large expenditures to give the BNSF route better infrastructure and much better connectivity than the UP route, which is not part of those plans.”

Hall was referring not only to FasTracks but to long-range plans to develop a high-speed rail route along the Front Range from New Mexico to Wyoming.

This YouTube video shows an Amtrak Pioneer train coming down Old Emigrant Hill about 20 miles outside of La Grande, Ore., on Aug. 14, 1996, a year before the train was discontinued.

The Pioneer service started daily service between Salt Lake City and Seattle in 1977. Denver passengers connected in Ogden, Utah, via the San Francisco Zephyr between Chicago and the Bay Area, which passed through Denver. At the time, the Zephyr used the Wyoming Overland route between Denver and San Francisco.

In 1983, Amtrak rerouted the Zephyr through Colorado’s Denver and Rio Grande Western route in the heart of the central Rockies, including Glenwood Canyon, and christened it the California Zephyr. Eventually, in 1991, Amtrak extended the Pioneer all the way into Denver via the Overland route because of scheduling difficulties with the Zephyr.

But by 1997, with declining federal support to subsidize the service, the Pioneer was discontinued. This ended passenger rail service through southern Idaho and western Oregon.

If the Pioneer is reinstated all the way into Denver via the Wyoming Overland route, it would also restore passenger service in the southern Wyoming cities of Evanston, Rock Springs, Rawlins, Laramie and Cheyenne.

According to the report, getting the corridor in shape to handle passenger service would require hundreds of millions of dollars on top of the other costs.

“The reintroduction of the Pioneer would require significant capital/mobilization expenditures for infrastructure improvements, new equipment, station restoration, and employee training and qualifying,” the report reads.

“Reinstatement of daily Pioneer service would require a total of four to six locomotives and 23 to 26 Superliner cars, depending upon the option selected. Most or all of this equipment would have to be purchased new, at a projected cost of $141 million for Option 1 (Salt Lake City–Seattle), $123 million for Option 2 (Denver–Seattle), and $138 million for Options 3 or 4 (Salt Lake City–Portland or Denver–Portland).

“Pioneer restoration would also require one-time expenditures for employee training and for qualifying train and engine crews over the selected route. These costs are estimated at approximately $4.9 million for Option 1 (Salt Lake City–Seattle); $6.6 million for Options 2 (Denver–Seattle) and 4 (Denver–Portland); and $4.5 million for Option 3 (Salt Lake City–Portland).

“In total, the identified capital and mobilization costs are as follows:

Option 1 (Salt Lake City–Seattle): $382 million.

Option 2 (Denver–Salt Lake City): $478 million.

Option 3 (Salt Lake City–Portland): $379 million.

Option 4 (Denver–Portland): $493 million.”

Other key takeaways from the draft study:

Route Options:

Option 1 (Salt Lake City-Seattle): Salt Lake City to Seattle, with through Chicago–Seattle cars operating on the California Zephyr via the Rio Grande Route (now owned by Union Pacific) east of Salt Lake City.

Option 2 (Denver-Seattle): Denver to Seattle via the UP Overland Route; through Chicago–Seattle cars exchanged with the California Zephyr in Denver.

Option 3 (Salt Lake City-Portland): Salt Lake City to Portland, with through Chicago–Portland cars operating on the California Zephyr via the UP Rio Grande Route east of Salt Lake City.

Option 4: (Denver-Portland): Denver to Portland via the UP Overland Route; through Chicago–Portland cars exchanged with the California Zephyr in Denver.

Ridership and Revenue:

Option 1 (Salt Lake City–Seattle Option): 102,000 passengers and $11.6 million revenue.

Option 2 (Denver–Seattle): 111,000 passengers and $13.1 million revenue.

Option 3 (Salt Lake City–Portland): 82,000 passengers and $7.6 million revenue.

Option 4 (Denver–Portland): 95,000 passengers and $9.2 million revenue.

Annual direct operating costs:

Option 1 (Salt Lake City–Seattle): $36.6 million

Option 2 (Denver–Seattle): $46.2 million

Option 3 (Salt Lake City–Portland): $35.9 million

Option 4 (Denver–Portland): $44.7 million

Projected direct operating loss:

Option 1 (Salt Lake City–Seattle): $25.0 million

Option 2 (Denver–Seattle): $33.1 million

Option 3 (Salt Lake City–Portland): $28.3 million

Option 4 (Denver–Portland): $35.5 million