EADS, Colo. — The company interested in buying Union Pacific’s dormant Tennessee Pass line through the Colorado Rockies would do so to provide a more direct route for grain shipments from eastern Colorado and Kansas, according to the company’s lawyer.
Colorado Pacific Railroad, which bought the former Missouri Pacific Towner Line in eastern Colorado, notified Union Pacific of its interest in buying the former Denver & Rio Grande Western line earlier this month, and UP said it would entertain offers. [See “UP considering sale of Tennessee Pass route,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 19, 2019.]
In a statement to the Kiowa County (Colo.) Independent, attorney William Osborn said Colorado Pacific owner Stefan Soloviev “is taking this step because a substantial portion of the time, eastern Colorado and western Kansas grain producers will get better prices if they ship using the shortest railroad route to the West Coast, instead of the Texas Gulf Coast, for the export market … This is part of a continuing effort to open up eastern Colorado farm ground to west coast and pacific export markets for wheat and milo.”
Soloviev is owner of Crossroads Agriculture and was described in a Bloomberg article earlier this year as “heir to a $4.7 billion fortune” and America’s 31st largest land owner. The Bloomburg article described his desire to extend his railroad in Colorado “to the West Coast and beyond.”
