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Four Corners region could get a new freight train line
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People in Farmington have been talking about what a train line could do for the region’s economy for 50 years — since the narrow-gauge railroad connection from Farmington to Antonito, Colorado, was abandoned. With millions in federal grants and state matching funds, San Juan County is finally on track toward a new rail line.
“What really helped to spur this was the closure of coal-fired power plants that was happening both on and off the Navajo Nation,” San Juan County Manager Mike Stark said.
The Four Corners region is dependent on two industries: coal-fired power plants and oil and gas, Stark said. In 2019, the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona, closed. Then the Escalante Power Plant near Prewitt went dark in 2020, followed by the San Juan Generating Station near Shiprock in 2022. The Four Corners Power Plant west of Farmington is slated to close in 2031.
“These are large industrial complexes that create very high-paying, middle-class, union jobs that were paying upwards of $100,000 a year,” Stark said. “So, we’re concerned about the loss of the jobs, the loss of the tax revenues that benefited the community and the school districts, and we want to find ways to replace these industries that have had such a dramatic impact on our community.”
The Four Corners Freight Rail Project is estimated to cost more than $1 billion, according to Stark, so securing the necessary funding could be a challenge. San Juan County, the Navajo Nation and the New Mexico Department of Transportation are working together on the project.
Long-distance freight shipments to or from the Four Corners region have to travel by truck to the nearest railroad transloading facilities, more than 100 miles south of Farmington, according to NMDOT spokeswoman Kristine Bustos-Mihelcic. A freight rail could reduce the cost of shipping goods to and from the area, benefiting existing industries and potentially attracting new ones.
A new rail line could make it easier to import agricultural products like fertilizers and minerals, and raw materials for new energy jobs like metals for building hydrogen generators, Stark said. New industries could also use a rail line to export goods.
“We’ve had a solar panel recycling company interested in this area. ... One of our local companies that’s developed and is manufacturing mobile hydrogen generators for BayoTech out of Albuquerque, Pesco Incorporated ... (is) very interested in freight rail,” Stark said.
In October, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a $4 million grant for San Juan County to create the new rail line from Farmington to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway corridor near Gallup. The money would go toward an analysis of prospective routes and preliminary engineering.
Five routes for the train line have been proposed. The analysis would include a National Environmental Policy Act review, which takes three to four years, said San Juan County spokesman Devin Neeley.
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The grant requires a 20% match, or $1 million, from San Juan County. Those dollars are coming from the New Mexico Match Fund, which state legislators created earlier this year to help communities pay matching funds for federally funded projects.
“We wouldn’t have been able to come up with a match of that size. It would’ve been a real challenge,” Stark said.
San Juan County is awaiting an economic feasibility study on the potential rail line, which is supposed to be released in December and was paid for with $2 million from another federal grant, according to Neeley.
