{"id":9768,"date":"2014-09-18T14:19:59","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T20:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/krtnradio.com\/?p=9768"},"modified":"2014-09-19T08:03:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T14:03:22","slug":"all-aboard-with-nm-state-transportation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/2014\/09\/18\/all-aboard-with-nm-state-transportation\/","title":{"rendered":"All Aboard with NM State Transportation"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a packed room to see the NM State Transportation Commission conduct its monthly meeting in Raton at the invitation of District 4 Commissioner and Raton resident, Ron Schmeits.<\/p>\n

Commission chairman Pete Rahn convened the meeting to order in the Raton Best Western Hotel with the majority of the crowd there for the update on Amtrak\u2019s Southwest Chief.<\/p>\n

All that spoke were all-aboard in favor of the SW Chief as Ray Lang of Amtrak gave their update saying the recent Tiger Grant awarded to CO-KS is a major step in the right direction.\u00a0 Lang said BNSF alerted Amtrak in 2011 of Burlington\u2019s intention to reduce the maintenance on the route of some 224 miles because of reduced freight.\u00a0 That would drop the section to a class 2 which is safe up to 30 miles per hour.\u00a0 The section currently is class 4 with speeds safe up to 80 miles an hour.<\/p>\n

The NM portion from the Raton Pass to Lamy, is in better shape than portions of the CO-KS tracks, so maintenance not replacement\/repair would be the big issue in New Mexico.\u00a0 Lang said the original estimate for NM was 100 million for ten years or ten million per year.\u00a0 He also said Amtrak is committed to $4 million per year and while BNSF has not given a solid number, it has said it would be willing to help maintain in the hope of future increased business.<\/p>\n

Chairman Rahn told Lang \u201dwe need a number\u201d in order to know what the state can expect.\u00a0 Rahn also stated \u201cmoney is tight\u201d in NM with GRIP funds already committed and allocated.\u00a0\u00a0 A meeting with Amtrak, BNSF and state officials will be forthcoming as Rahn directed NM Transportation cabinet secretary\u2019s Tom Church\u2019s liason to ask Church about setting up a meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Incoming Raton City Manager Scott Berry said it was the single most important transportation issue in Raton\/Colfax County. Berry told the commission that the Track Fire and the closing of the interstate pointed out how important the Raton portal is to the state.\u00a0 Berry also complimented the Raton airport, calling it one of the best small airports in NM.\u00a0 Berry also said Express Aviation is set to replace Pegasus Aviation in the near future and has further plans to improve the amenities even more.<\/p>\n

Colfax County commissioners Jim Maldonado and Bill Sauble were there, as were Raton City Commissioners, Ron Chavez, Neil Segotta, Don Giacomo and Mayor Sandy Mantz.<\/p>\n

Amtrak economics were the biggest part of the public input to the commission.\u00a0 Ford Robbins, President of the NM SW Chief coalition attended and Jim Sooby of the CO state rail coalition wanted the commission to realize what a really extraordinary asset it is that is virtually untapped.\u00a0 The line passes by some 23 million people from Chicago to LA and one of the possibilities is hosting international rail travelers, especially from Europe, for tour and special packages.\u00a0 Rick Klein, Mayor of La Junta, said jobs is number one.\u00a0 According to Klein, one-half of all Americans don\u2019t have drivers licenses. Ray Lang stated earlier that it was his belief that there would be freight on the line in the future.<\/p>\n

In summary of the NM Transportation Commission\u2019s position, Rahn said the commission was in support of the SW Chief, but the challenge is dollars.<\/p>\n

\"Amtrak\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a packed room to see the NM State Transportation Commission conduct its monthly meeting in Raton at the invitation of District 4 Commissioner and Raton resident, Ron Schmeits. Commission chairman Pete Rahn convened the meeting to order in the Raton Best Western Hotel with the majority of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":9770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry","rows-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}