THE UPPER ARKANSAS MEETS THE NEXT RAILROAD BOOM

By Forrest Whitman Colorado folks, especially here in the Upper Arkansas Valley, used to be called “Colorado nice.” I still hear that sometimes, but not often. There are more of us here and that may result in less “nice” and more “grumpies.” Population booms lead to some positives and some negatives, but there’s no argument …

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Places: Catching the SW Chief to Las Vegas, NM

By Forrest Whitman Winter is the perfect time to catch the train called the Chief. The trip begins early with a drive along U.S. Hwy. 50 to Cotopaxi. Snow highlights those fantastic rock formations, and the upper Arkansas River sparkles in the pink dawn. You’re in a good mood – off to catch a train! …

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The Caboose

By Forrest Whitman There’s shock in Colorado at the real prospect of losing the popular passenger train, the Chief. The rumors out of AMTRAK all say the Chief is in a railroad death spiral. The new President of AMTRAK, Richard Anderson, runs AMTRAK like President Trump runs the White House. There’s no public input or …

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From the Editor: About This Issue

By Mike Rosso

I’d like to start off with a bit of business.

Last month, due to negligence on the part of our new printer, many of you received only a portion of the July issue and in some cases, only the cover. The problem lay with the “stitch and trim” process, the last order of business before the magazines are shipped to us. With apparently little oversight, the printers allowed over 900 copies of the magazine to be shipped with compromised stitching, resulting in many magazines falling apart in transit.

This was disastrous for us as we spent a good portion of the past month repackaging and resending magazines – time we could have spent researching articles, selling advertising, and other day-to-day business. We’re happy with the quality of the actual printing but when the last worker neglects to do their job well, the entire works fail. We’ve been promised this will not happen again and if you are reading this, chances are they’ve corrected the problems. If you were one of the unlucky ones to have not received an intact version of the July issue, please contact us by email at cozinemag@gmail.com or give a call at 719-530-9063 and we’ll make it right.

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The Caboose: Spring Optimism for us Rail Passengers

By Forrest Whitman

There was a lot of hopeful passenger train talk on my recent trip from Denver to Seattle on AMTRAK. On the first leg of that trip, the California Zephyr carried over 800 passengers. The train up the coast from Sacramento to Seattle looked full too. No one in either train’s lounge car doubted the popularity of passenger rail.

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