Will Colorado Pacific prevail in its bid for the tracks through Chaffee County and Tennessee Pass? Image/Hayden Soloviev
Colorado Pacific Railroad isn’t stepping aside.
The comparatively small rail company that recently sought to obtain the Tennessee Pass Line has announced that it plans to file a protest with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) regarding the recent agreement for the line between the Union Pacific (UP) and Rio Grande Pacific railroads.
As previously reported in AVV, a subsidiary of Rio Grande Pacific – Colorado Midland & Pacific – announced on Dec. 31 that it had filed with the STB to run passenger and freight trains from Cañon City to Eagle. But putting actual trains on rails is far from being a done deal.
Colorado Pacific Railroad is controlled by Stefan Soloviev, whose Crossroads Agriculture has considerable cropland in southeast Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. He gained use of the short-line Towner tracks to serve the grain elevators that dot southeastern Colorado’s plains.
Soloviev made an unsuccessful bid in 2020 for the Tennessee Pass tracks from UP, which had been in negotiations with Rio Grande Pacific. The 160-mile segment, he has argued, would provide a mountain shortcut for grain producers, meaning they would see better prices on grain headed to the West Coast, by shipping on the shorter route.
Colorado Pacific contends that UP holds a monopoly on the rails and that Colorado Midland & Pacific’s name is confusingly close to Colorado Pacific’s.
In a weekend press release, Soloviev’s company, represented by his son and vice chair Hayden Soloviev, issued the following statement:
“Colorado Pacific Railroad LLC (CXR) will be filing a protest at the Surface Transportation Board asking it not to approve the Tennessee Pass lease agreement announced December 31st between Union Pacific (UP) and Rio Grande Pacific (RGP) on grounds that UP thereby maintains its monopoly stranglehold across the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, in defiance of concerns about the Tennessee Pass line stated by the Board in its decision in the 1996 UP-SP merger case. It appears that CXR should also request the reopening of that case, to enable Colorado’s competitive access to the national railroad network. Further, RGP has selected a business entity name deceptively similar to ours, in a purposeful effort to confuse the public. This is legally actionable and will not be tolerated.”
The Tennessee Pass Line has been dormant since 1997. Colorado Midland & Pacific is now planning to meet with communities along the Tennessee Pass route to determine interest, noting that it will be a lengthy process that does not guarantee trains will once again use the line.
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