See the July 16, 2026 Colorado Springs Gazette article by Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy.
Proposed new railroad will provide passenger trains from DIA to Keystone, Breckenridge, Vail and beyond
In an effort to help relieve traffic jams on I-70 and U.S. Hwy 285 through the Colorado Rockies, a brand-new passenger railroad route has been proposed from Denver International Airport (DIA) to a number of major Colorado ski areas.
This new passenger railroad will be built far to the south of such busy automobile traffic areas as the Eisenhower Tunnel and Winter Park. It will mainly go through wild and undeveloped scenic territory.
Starting from DIA, the passenger trains will use brand new railroad track running south to Parker and then west to the existing Mineral Station on Denver’s RTD Light Rail line along Santa Fe Drive.
The new railroad tracks then will head in a southwestern direction parallel to U.S. Hwy 285 through Bailey to Grant.
Then the new passenger railroad will begin a scenic climb up Guanella Pass heading for the Continental Divide, which will be crossed with a five-mile-long railroad tunnel.
Once through the Continental Divide tunnel, the passenger trains will soon reach the southern shores of Lake Dillon. (I-70 runs along the northern shores of Lake Dillon.)
The new railroad will then make its first major stop at Frisco, which will provide easy access to the Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper Mountain, and Arapahoe Basin ski areas.
Staying on its own newly pioneered route, the railroad will run up and over the next mountain range near Fremont Pass, using a 6.5-mile railroad tunnel. Both the Continental Divide and Fremont tunnels will be engineered to also handle double-stacked container freight trains and military trains.
At Red Cliff, the new railroad will begin to parallel the out-of-service tracks of the Union Pacific (formerly Rio Grande) railroad, which goes over Tennessee Pass from Pueblo to Glenwood Springs and beyond.
The new tracks will carry the passenger trains to Vail, Beaver Creek, and other ski areas in the Avon region. A short out-and-back spur track will be needed to reach Vail.
This proposed Alpine railroad will be single track with passing tracks at the major stations. In places, the line will be engineered to allow 90 miles per hour speeds. From DIA to the Summit and Eagle County ski resorts will be 178 miles taking as little as 97 minutes for an express line leaving DIA to reach Avon.
The locomotives to pull these passenger trains will be neither catenary electric nor diesel powered. They will be battery powered electric locomotives that can make the trip from DIA to the major ski areas on a single charge.
There will be a major recharging facility at the Frisco station. Battery electric locomotives will recharge quickly in as little as 35-45 minutes during scheduled layovers.
A major asset of battery powered locomotives on mountain railroads is that the batteries can be recharged on downgrades by turning the electric motors that pull the train uphill into electric generators when going downhill.
Battery powered locomotives are non-polluting. They also eliminate the weather-related challenges associated with overhead catenary electric railway systems. The exposed electric wires can be easily damaged in mountain environments by heavy snow and ice. Additionally, diesel locomotives are more polluting and require expensive tunnel ventilation systems, both mitigated by battery powered locomotives.
Passenger trains will be eight cars long, with two locomotives and six passenger coaches in each train. Initially, there will be 35 separate train sets, each one with a seating capacity of 520 passengers.
This new railway project will be a job creator. It is estimated that 72,000 direct and indirect jobs will be created during construction. In addition, 2,100 permanent operating positions will be required to operate the railroad once built.
It is further estimated the new railroad will reduce annual vehicle miles traveled on I-70 and Hwy 285 by 340 million, and carbon emissions will drop by 155,000 metric tons annually.
This project is known as Denver West Express, Inc. (DWE). It is supported by a group of professionals with engineering, architectural, and business training. Jay Branch is serving as vice president of Design and Development.
The major reason for proposing this project is the dire situation that exists along the Interstate 70 corridor between the Front Range of Colorado and the popular ski areas in the Rocky Mountains. Traffic congestion is bad and getting worse with each passing year.
Friday westbound and Sunday eastbound travel times regularly exceed four hours for the 100-mile journey from Denver to Vail. This is a trip that ordinarily requires less than two hours under normal driving conditions.
About 12 to 14 years will be required to construct this scenic mountain railroad. The total cost of this project is estimated to be as much as $33 billion in 2025 dollars. At that high cost, this will have to be a major government-supported project.
The high cost would be justified by the seriousness of the current traffic situation on I-70 west of Denver to the major Colorado ski areas. As the population on the Front Range increases in the future and the popularity of snow skiing continues to go up, the I-70 west traffic situation will only get worse and worse.
A fun passenger train ride following a wild and scenic southerly route into the Rocky Mountains should be part of the solution.
Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy are political analysts who write about Colorado and national politics.
See the September 12, 2026 Summit Daily News article by Ryan Spencer.
A Colorado company thinks a $30B train could bring ski traffic from Denver to Avon in 97 minutes. Others call it a ‘pipedream’
The Denver West Express would have stations at Denver International Airport, Mineral Station in Littleton and the ski towns of Frisco and Avon
An ambitious proposal to construct an electric rail line that could whisk skiers from Denver International Airport to Avon in about 97 minutes faces an uphill battle to become a reality.
But Jay Branch, the vice-president of Denver West Express Inc., a company proposing a railroad that would do exactly that, believes it’s possible, even if he and his business partners haven’t figured out every detail.
“This is a concept, and it’s a business plan. It isn’t a fully engineered route,” Branch said. “There are some problems that will need to be resolved. We haven’t solved all the problems. We know we can get from point A to point B in an efficient and reasonable amount of time. There’s a lot of questions that haven’t been answered yet.”
The Denver West Express, as proposed by the company, would stretch 178 miles from Denver into the mountains with passenger trains averaging speeds of about 90 mph. The project was first reported by the Denver Gazette, and drew the attention of ski industry blogs such as SnowBrains.
On the Western Slope, the Denver West Express proposal has sparked interest as well as skepticism.
“It sounds like a pipe dream — or should I say tunnel dream — to me,” wrote Patrick Brower, founder of Grand County-based consulting service Grand Enterprise Initiative, in a recent column for the Sky-Hi News. “But I’m curious to learn more.”
The proposed route would cross through largely undeveloped terrain south of Interstate 70 and require two major tunnels, a nearly 5-mile tunnel under the Continental Divide and another 6.5-mile tunnel near Fremont Pass, according to an executive summary of the project. The plans call for the trains to use battery electric locomotive technology, such as that developed by the Pennsylvania-based Wabtec Corporation.
The proposed rail line would have a station at Denver International Airport, one that would tie into existing rail lines at Mineral Station in Littleton, another stop in the rural town of Bailey along U.S. Route 285 and stations in Frisco and Avon to drop ski traffic near major resorts. Branch said the company has devised a route through the mountains that fits railroad standards, including never exceeding a 4% grade.
Based on estimates from comparable European railroad projects, the project summary estimates that it would cost between $28 and 33 billion to construct the Denver West Express over a 12-14 year period.
The president of Denver West Express is Mark Leese, who also heads the Denver-based architecture firm Leese & Associates and has years of transportation planning experience in Colorado. Branch also has experience with architecture and engineering design through his company Jay Branch Enterprises, Inc.
To date, the company has not filed any official plans with the Colorado Department of Transportation or other transit authorities.
Branch said that the hope is to fund as much of the project as possible through private investments, while also collaborating with local, state and federal authorities for funding. He said the best-case scenario for the project would be to find a billionaire “benefactor” who could help provide the funds.
“We would love to build this thing privately and not ask Colorado taxpayers for a nickel,” he said.
Branch said the railroad, which would also be able to carry freight, would be a solution to increasing congestion on I-70 and could help connect workers on the Front Range to mountain communities, where the cost of living is high. He cited an I-70 corridor impact study published this year, which estimated that traffic on the mountain corridor costs Colorado about $2.3 billion annually.
As Colorado pursues its climate goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Branch said the battery powered trains would also help the state reduce emissions. He said that if the rail line were successful in connecting Denver to the mountains, it could eventually be linked into a high-speed transcontinental railroad.
The Denver West Express proposal joins another ambitious passenger rail proposal pitched by the Denver-based STE-Holdings. That project, called the I-70 Mountain Express, would bring a hydrogen-powered railway from Golden to Breckenridge and Winter Park, but has not been formally proposed yet to state or federal transportation authorities and faces major obstacles from funding to permitting.
As private companies pitch these big ideas, Colorado transportation officials are continuing to pursue their own plans for mountain rail projects. CDOT’s latest plans for mountain rail, published in 2023, call for investments of between $4.3 and $6.1 billion to build out 620 miles of additional train service.
The state’s proposed routes would connect Denver to Grand Junction along the route of the current California Zephyr operated by Amtrack, Denver to Craig by expanding the existing route of the Winter Park Express, Glenwood Springs to Pueblo along Tennessee Pass and Glenwood Springs to Aspen within the right-of-way of the historic Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
But none of Colorado’s plans would connect to ski resort communities in Summit or Eagle counties, where some of the state’s largest resorts — including Vail Mountain, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge Ski Resort, Keystone Resort and Copper Mountain — are located.
“Imagine getting off a plane, a tourist or even a local, and getting on a train at DIA and being able to ski six major ski areas without ever renting a car,” Branch said. “Once you get to Fricso, Avon (or) Vail, you guys already have established infrastructure there.”
Ryan Spencer writes public interest and transportation articles for the Summit Daily News, among other Summit and Eagle county periodicals.