Will the Littleton Light Rail Be Ready for Training Days?

Each year Training Days attendees from Highlands Ranch, Littleton, and other points SW crowd onto the RTD Light Rail to ride to and from the Denver Convention Center. It is always an adventure -- you never know who you will run into on the train or at the train station and there are lots of "Training Days" packs or bags on the train.

The Littleton Light Rail tracks share the same corridor as the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe train tracks. This is the primary freight line between Wyoming and Texas. Unfortunately, the BNSF has been having trouble keeping its cars on the tracks. You may remember that in December 2007, a coal south-bound train derailed just south of the center of Littleton. A light-rail training heading north then plowed into the spilled coal and also derailed. No one was seriously injured, but it took several weeks to get the wreckage cleared, and to get the train tracks and the light rail repaired.

Well late Jan. 16th of this year, a north-bound freight-train carrying molten sulfur derailed just south of the Littleton Light Rail station. Luckily no one was injured, but the train crash damaged several hundards of yards of three train tracks, and the north-bound Light Rail track.

The BNSF worked night and day to remove the wreckage and to restore service on their tracks. Meanwhile all freight trains running north or south just had to sit and wait, and power plants in Texas waited for coal.

Now that BNSF has their service restored, and all their equipment is out of the way, RTD is working hard to rebuild a retaining wall between the freight track and the light rail, and to rebuild its north-bound track.

We checked their progress today, and as you can see, they still have a lot of work left. The word is that it will be 7 more days before the Light Rail service can be restored.

Hopefully the Light Rail will be ready for Training Days! We will keep you posted.