The Regional Transportation District (RTD) and Union Pacific Railroad (UP) celebrated the transfer of railroad property that RTD purchased from UP for the North Metro rail project that will be built through the FasTracks program.

At a ceremony this morning in Thornton at the site of the future Eastlake Station at 124th and Claude Court, RTD and UP were joined by local stakeholders whose communities will benefit from the project. The property that RTD purchased from UP is known as the Boulder Industrial Lead, a 33-mile stretch of property from Brighton Boulevard to the Valmont Power Plant in Boulder. The property will be used to build out the North Metro commuter rail corridor up to 162nd near State Highway 7. The tracks then turn west and head up to Boulder. The $118 million investment in the North Metro Corridor also allows RTD to preserve right-of-way to Boulder for future expansion.

“The significance of this event is two-fold: It marks years of collaboration with Union Pacific culminating in this purchase of property for FasTracks, and it represents a major investment in laying the foundation for the North Metro Corridor,” said RTD Interim General Manager Phil Washington.

“We appreciate the close working relationship we’ve had over the past several years with RTD and it shows how freight rail and passenger rail can work together for everyone’s benefit,” said Dick Hartman, Union Pacific Director of Public Affairs. “We look forward to continuing to work with RTD and all local stakeholders on FasTracks projects and others of mutual interest to RTD and the railroad.”

Looking east from the middle of Pecos Street toward the railroads' Utah Junction, the four tracks split with the two on the left heading onto a Union Pacific bypass that has increased the number of trains here.

Adams County is set to start construction on an overall $43 million project that will greatly enhance mobility along Pecos Street near Interstate 76, open up redevelopment possibilities and at the same time make FasTracks a little bit better.

Sema Construction of Centennial was awarded a $27.5 million construction contract by Adams County to build the Pecos Street grade separation, a 1,000-foot, eight-span bridge that will take Pecos Street over the Union Pacific Railroad and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks between 56th and 62nd avenues, plus access roads down to the properties below the bridge.

Work will start with detour set-up as early as next month.

“We got some very good bids on this project,” said Jeanne Shreve, Adams County transportation coordinator. The contact was $3 million below the engineer’s estimate.

Computer simulation by Adams County GIS Speciallist Joe Suglia shows a view of the Pecos grade separation looking northeast. The four-track crossing is at the bottom of the rendering, while the RTD FasTracks Pecos Junction Station is at the top center, under the bridge.

Union Pacific is providing $14.4 million of the total cost. Up to $5.15 million is coming from the federal stimulus program – this job is definitely shovel-ready – and other federal and local Adams County funds are providing the rest.

No more stopping for an hour or more looking at a coal train parked across Pecos. While it might have given you a chance to catch up on your reading, it wasn’t a good way to get where you wanted to go. A few years ago, Adams County installed turnaround circles on either side of the crossing for traffic to U-turn instead of waiting for parked trains to move.

Rene Valdez, construction manager for Adams County Public Works, said the bridge will be made with concrete girders on piers and will be two lanes wide with sidewalks.

The price drivers will pay for this 22-month project is a total closure of Pecos at the crossing almost to the end of the project in October 2011. Detours will be established first, likely next month. Southbound Pecos traffic will be detoured west on I-76 to Federal, then south on Federal to 56th Avenue, and then east back to Pecos. Northbound traffic will take the same route in the opposite direction.

This will bring a temporary increase in traffic along 56th during construction. The closure means less time and expense for traffic control required when drivers go through a work zone.

Adams County and Sema representatives will host a public meeting to discuss the construction and detour plans. The meeting is tentatively set for the evening of Dec. 9 in Guardian Angels School on 52nd Avenue west of Pecos, Valdez said.

Google Earth view shows the location of the Pecos bridge project on the left with the layout of the railroad tracks that feed into the crossing.

This is a job that’s needed to be done for a long time, but for the huge expense. A lot of trains run through here every day. It’s just west of Utah Junction, the meeting point for BNSF’s Golden Branch, along which the RTD FasTracks Gold Line will run, and its Front Range Subdivision to Boulder, as well as UP’s Moffat Tunnel Subdivision that heads up the Rockies to the tunnel, and its Belt Line connector to the Greeley and Limon tracks in east Denver. Utah Junction also handles trains headed out of UP’s North Yard and BNSF’s adjacent Rennick Yard.

What gave the Pecos grade separation fresh impetus was the 2004 construction by UP of bypass tracks from the Moffat Tunnel tracks on the west to the Belt Line, which is an east-west shortcut parallel to 60th Avenue for trains to reach UP’s Greeley and Limon tracks. The bypass tracks make up two of the four tracks at the Pecos crossing.

The bypass greatly increased the number of trains,which sometimes come to a stop with freight or coal cars blocking Pecos for lengthy periods of time each day.

To expand to full screen and read the captions, first click on the “play” button and then click on the box that will appear at the lower right corner — with the four little arrows pointing outward. When the full screen appears, click on “Show Info” at the menu bar on the top right.

When the bridge is completed, expect this area to open up.

It’s been one plugged-up island in a sea of regional traffic, smack in the middle of a triangle bounded by I-76, Interstate 25 and Interstate 70. There is a lot of industrial development, landfills, ponds and some residential through the Clear Creek Valley that traverses it.

“You have tremendous access from the highway system,” Shreve said. “t’s a great place for a commuter park-n-Ride.”

Adams County already is laying groundwork via its Clear Creek Valley Transit Oriented Development Plan for more mobility improvements. A new east-west Clear Creek Parkway along the south side of the creek plus a new collector road that could connect Pecos to Huron or Broadway to the east are on the drawing board.

And RTD will have the space it needs to construct a joint FasTracks station on the east side of Pecos, where Gold Line trains between Denver and Arvada/Wheat Ridge can share passenger transfers with the Northwest Rail trains serving Denver, Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder and Longmont.

Looking southeast down the BNSF track on the east side of Pecos Street, this is the site for RTD FasTracks joint station on the Gold Line and Northwest Rail corridors. Building the grade separation makes the joint station possible.

FasTracks is next to the BNSF Front Range Subdivision that head toward Boulder at this point. If the Pecos bridge were not to be built, track geometry would have precluded RTD from including a Northwest Rail stop there. The Gold Line station instead would have to have been built on the west side of Pecos, beyond the point where it splits from shared trackage with the Northwest Rail Corridor. Northwest Rail passengers would have been required to go into north Denver’s planned 41st Avenue station to transfer in the opposite direction to Gold Line trains.

“It really does come down to geometrics,” said Gold Line Project Manager Ashland Vaughn. “We have to do a series of turnouts there and it turns out to be a diamond that falls right in the middle of Pecos Street. You don’t want to have paving around those switches.”

RTD needs to have up to 600 feet of straight track section to put in a station platform.

Adams County put a lot of thought and planning into what the project would look like. This provides a lesson in how different alternatives are weighed and chosen.

A lengthy bridge is expensive, and with the separation between the UP and the BNSF crossings it was possible to build two bridges. The county engaged in a nearly year-long process of looking at different design alternatives. It is downhill going north from the UP tracks toward the BNSF crossing. Because of that, it extended the distance that the ramp back down to ground level would have to go while still maintaining a maximum 5 percent grade.

The reason that was an important factor is that this involves the north approach to the bridge. Since it slopes away from the angle of the winter sun, making it too steep would invite a persistent winter icing problem and potential maintenance headache. A gentler grade on the north approach helps make use of winter sunlight to melt ice and snow.

The estimated cost difference between building two bridges and a larger single one was $3 million, the larger one being more expensive but promising less maintenance.

“We wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing,” Shreve said.

Looking toward the southeast from Pecos Street, the Union Pacific Railroad tracks head toward Utah Junction and the North Yard.

The state’s modal programs manager at CDOT, Tom Mauser, also questioned the estimated $470 million in capital upgrades that Union Pacific Railroad gave to Amtrak for a draft study on the reinstatement, noting that Amtrak had run Pioneer service over the same Wyoming Overland route as recently as 12 years ago.

“Given that the Pioneer operated over the Overland route just 12 years ago, the high capital costs in Option 2 ($470 million) seem to go beyond what is required to restore the same service,” Mauser wrote in comments submitted to Amtrak.

Those costs include an estimated $38 million to be spent on track upgrades in Colorado. But of that, $15 million is on tracks not along the Pioneer route.

Map outlines the estimated $38 million in costs to upgrade tracks that would allow reinstatement of the Amtrak Pioneer train service between Denver and Seattle.

That’s cheaper, Union Pacific estimated, than adding capacity to the Greeley Subdivision, which it estimated would take up to $155 million.

“The alternative of providing sufficient capacity on the Greeley subdivision would require three additional sidings and closing or grade separating eight different roads in order to make the existing sidings fully useable,” the Amtrak report reads. “These Greeley subdivision improvements would require $35 million in direct infrastructure investment for sidings and CTC signalization and roughly $80 to $120 million of indirect investment to close and/or grade separate road crossings. In comparison, the Julesburg investment of $38 million would enable the proposed Pioneer service.”

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 report reads.

Mauser also noted that communities along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway alignment from Denver to Wyoming through Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins are interested in the Pioneer using that alignment.

“CDOT recognizes that Amtrak did not have Congressional authority to study any routes beyond the two routes previously used by the Pioneer, and we appreciate that the study mentions this alternative and indicates that this specific Colorado routing could be studied later if needed,” Mauser wrote. “We believe this route could offer a large population base from which to draw riders and should be considered if future studies are conducted.”

The Pioneer ran on the Overland Route across Wyoming from Ogden, Utah, between 1991 and 1997, when it was discontinued. Before that, the California Zephyr used the Wyoming route until 1983, when it was changed to the more scenic Denver and Rio Grande Western route through the Colorado Rockies.

Adams County has issued a request for proposals to award a contract for the Pecos Street Grade Separation Project. This $43 million project will grade separate Pecos Street from the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern railroad tracks south of I-76.

“This project is one of the Board of Commissioners highest priorities,” said board chairman Larry W. Pace. “We listened to the business and residents’ concerns about trains blocking Pecos Street for hours, and we responded. Additionally, this project has brought together partners to address a regional issue and is a key transfer station for RTD’s FasTracks project.”

The project will provide regional commuter and freight movement improvements and eliminate current safety hazards related to trains blocking Pecos Street for inordinate amounts of time.

Grade separating Pecos Street from the railroad tracks will improve connections between three major roadways: I-70, I-76 and U.S. 36, and is a key portion of RTD’s proposed FasTracks Vision Plan, benefiting the proposed Northwest Rail Line and the proposed Gold Line. The bridge will allow a joint cross station platform at the future Pecos Junction Station.

Funding for this project includes almost $20 million in federal dollars, including $10 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds. To qualify for ARRA funding for this project, the county worked closely with state and federal partners to meet certain deadlines.
Union Pacific Railroad has committed $14.4 million to the project. The balance of the project will be funded primarily by Adams County road and bridge funds.

Construction is scheduled to begin December 2009 and completed by October 2011. A community meeting will be held in late November prior to construction. For additional information, contact Jeanne Shreve, Adams County transportation coordinator, at 303-453-8809.