A little snippet from a message I received as being a loan committee member for Region 9 here in Southwest Colorado:

Farmington is now exploring whether to expand the branch line into Farmington (160 miles at $2.5M per mile of track). They can develop a Trans loading facility in Farmington and connect. The mileage needed varied from 80 to 160, depending on route and start/end points.
New Mexico Tech is doing a feasibility study on extending the line to Farmington. Looking at several corridors but route along Highway 371 from Crown Point to Farmington appears best and could occur by widening the right of way.


This involves the Navajo tribe (coal production and ROW) and the State of New Mexico. Could be interesting. Time for Al Harper to rebuild the narrow gauge to Farmington to thwart this standard gauge incursion.But then he'd have to negotiate with Wal-Mart to go through their parking lot to connect to Chama and thence to an almost connection with the standard gauge in Antonito.

Fritz