AMTRAK’S WINTER PARK EXPRESS BACK ON TRACK
Amtrak’s Winter Park Express to schuss slope enthusiasts up the hill
winter park »Gary DeFrange remembers that spring afternoon in 2009 when he watched the former Ski Train disappear into the Moffat Tunnel for the last time. It was the end of a nearly 70year run of weekend train service between downtown Denver and Winter Park ski area.
He vowed to get that train back.
“I really had no idea how complicated that is,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many people told me, ‘You’ll never get a train.’ ”
More than seven years later DeFrange, the longtime captain of the Denver-owned ski area in Grand County, stood in the same spot. Heavy machinery growled behind him, tearing down a berm separating the ski area from the Union Pacific train tracks. Within months, a heated, 950-foot cement rail platform will be ready for skiers arriving from Denver on the new Winter Park Express Amtrak double-decker Superliner train.
With the platform about 30 yards from the Gemini lift, downtown Denver is now ski-in, ski-out. (Of course, there’s a twohour train ride between those steps, but why sweat the details?)
After 18 months of intensive negotiations between Amtrak, Winter Park and railowner Union Pacific — and some not-sosubtle lobbying by Colorado’s U.S. senators, the governor, Denver’s mayor and rail fans across the state — the ski-train revival was made official Thursday.
The 500-passenger Amtrak Superliners will leave Denver Union Station at 7 a.m. and return at 6:40 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday from Jan. 7 through March 26, and on three Monday holidays in January and February. One-way fares start at $39, and kids riding with ticketed adults pay half. Tickets go on sale Tuesday at Amtrak.com/WinterParkExpress.
The toughest point of negotiation was designing, approving and building a rail platform that can accommodate wheelchairs.
The $3.5 million platform project — funded by a $1.5 million grant from the state De-
partment of Transportation, $100,000 from Denver, $100,000 from the Town of Winter Park and the rest from Winter Park ski area operator Intrawest — includes upgrades to the train station in nearby Fraser, spreading the impact of the train beyond the ski area.
After a test run of the Winter Park Express in March 2015 sold out two weekends in a matter of a few hours, Amtrak and Winter Park knew demand was high.
“There’s an incredible amount of excitement about this,” DeFrange said.
Winter Park ski area gains a huge profile boost as the only ski area in the country with direct rail service from a major city. The ante is upped by rail service to Union Station from Denver International Airport, which means travelers from afar can get to the ski hill without a car.
But the Winter Park Express also will benefit anyone who travels Interstate 70 in the winter. Officials estimate a full train will remove as many as 500 automobiles from the congested mountain corridor for every round-trip.
At $78 for a round-trip, tickets are not cheap — especially for a family that could drive up for the day. But Amtrak and Winter Park officials feel the $39 one-way tickets will stir demand. The cost is in line with historical pricing, said Matt Hardison, Amtrak’s head of marketing and sales.
But that historical pricing didn’t work for Phil Anschutz, the Denver businessman who shut down his Ski Train in 2009 after losing money in the face of soaring insurance costs and steadily increasing coal traffic on the 62-mile high country route that travels through the historic Moffat Tunnel.
Amtrak has a national insurance policy that is spread across a vast rail network and coal traffic is declining. Amtrak also is using its efficient doubledecker Superliner cars.
“We are doing things a little bit differently than Mr. Anschutz,” Hardison said.
If the Winter Park Express works, could Winter Park someday add a special twist: a “ski and ride” pass?
Too early to tell, said DeFrange, with a wry grin showing he has already pondered how that kind of pass product would elevate his marketing game.
“I think it’s plausible,” Hardison said. “But the reality is we need to learn what the demand profile looks like and get a sense for the market.”
In a resort scene increasingly dominated by Vail Resorts and its industry-leading Epic Pass, ski areas that win are those that stand out with something different. Steamboat has its cowboys. Telluride its box canyon and European-style views. Squaw Valley its steeps. Crested Butte its funky town. And Winter Park has a train.
That’s well worth the money Intrawest is paying to build a new rail platform, DeFrange said.
“We think this is a really good business decision,” DeFrange said. “It’s an incredible differentiator. You can add new features to your pass, but you can’t start a new train tomorrow. It’s a lot of money to be putting into capital improvements, but we think it’s well worth it.”