Everyone bow your head (or protest) the end of the Ski Train

Everyone… a moment of silence please.
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I just read in the paper that the wonderful Ski Train to Winter Park has been sold.  No more sitting with friends, laughing on the train without a single driving care in the world.  No more early morning walks through downtown with my skis on my back knowing that parking and traffic were a thing of the past.

Why… well the Denver Post article cites a number of things such as the fact that the train had been an unprofitable business, that there was uncertainty about the Union Station project, and other pieces in the “combination of things”.

While I am sure that there is some truth to these items, I find it so disappointing that no one has the forethought to look at our growing downtown and realize how valuable an amenity like the Ski Train was to both the character and the unique mountain partnership that is Denver. I know that as we grow as a city many, many people either lose or never build a connection to the beautiful rockies. But I would hope that more would, and that as the downtown residential population grows that percentage becomes a bigger and bigger number (because mathematicians out there the percentage stays the same but the number its factored against grows) the ski train and the culture around this historic icon would grow as well.

I’ll probably comment on this story some more, it saddens me. I was hoping to see the train system expand into the mountains farther including Vail and Summit County. Instead an existing train line is being dropped. I only hope someone out there is looking at this wonderful opportunity to be, now anyway, the sole provider of train service to the mountain destinations. I hope someone hears the President’s conversations about sinking more investments into rail and alternative train transportation. I hope someone out there is listening to the many, many, many people who would love to leave their cars behind and take a train seat to the mountains.

Here is a Facebook group of folks asking for just that… a train to the mountains.

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