By Quentin Young | editor
“We are not building a commuter rail service … What we’re talking about is connecting people between metropolitan areas for major sporting events, for weekends visiting a grandkid at college, for going to a musical for the evening in Denver.”
— Sal Pace, Front Range Passenger Rail District’s general manager
A conceptual rendering of a Colorado Connector passenger train. (Courtesy of Colorado Connector)
By Chase Woodruff
If voters approve a sales-tax ballot measure later this year to fund the Colorado Connector passenger rail service, two daily round trips would be offered along the full 190-mile route from Pueblo to Fort Collins within five years, according to a plan unveiled by state officials Monday. That intermediate phase would follow a “starter service” between Fort Collins and Denver, which is still on track to launch by 2029 — with or without the additional tax revenue. Service would be gradually expanded in future years to reach 10 daily round trips on the northern segment and eight on the southern segment, along with potential line extensions to Trinidad, New Mexico and Wyoming.
The first National Western Stock show took place at the Denver Stockyards, now the site of the National Western Center, in January 1906. (Courtesy of National Western Stock Show)
FIFTY FOR 150
By Sara Wilson
Ranchers and farmers gathered under a big top tent borrowed from the circus for the first official National Western Stock Show in Denver in January 1906. There had been previous stock show attempts, such as the 1875 Blood Stock Fair, the 1899 National Exhibition of Range Cattle and sporadic meetings of the Denver Fat Stock and Feeder Show, but 1906 proved to be a rosy year for an official stock show, with six livestock and agricultural associations set to meet in Denver around the same time. Today, the National Western Stock Show is held at the National Western Complex and attracts almost 700,000 visitors to the rodeos, horse shows, trade show, auctions and other events.
The Colorado River is pictured where it flows near Hite, Utah, just beyond the upper reaches of Lake Powell, on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
COMMENTARY
By Gary Wockner
As negotiations and potential lawsuits over the Colorado River intensify, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – which is ultimately in charge of managing the river – would be smart to pull back from the high-stakes gambit and take a hard look at the science. Commentary writer Gary Wockner calls this a “climate doom loop,” where the damming and diversion of the Colorado River causes greenhouse gas emissions that dries out the Southwest, causing decision-makers to try to accelerate the damming and diversion that accelerates the GHG emissions and the drying.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Democratic nominees for Congress in Colorado outraise Republican rivals | By Chase Woodruff
Commentary: A promising psychedelic treatment is on the horizon for new moms | By Camille Hoffman
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