The Little Engine that Probably Won't, Anytime Soon

Colorado train service is getting a lot of ink. But it's like the one at platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station. Invisible, and probably fictional. BY PETER MOORE, SPECIAL TO THE COLORADO SUN

THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES in my life when I was train-obsessed.

As a high-schooler, I often awoke at 5:30AM to pilot my dad down I-95 in Connecticut, to drop him off at the Westport Train Station for his commute to New York. Then I turned around to retrieve him from the New Haven Line ten hours later. I loved the excitement of looking down the line, spotting the arriving commuter beast, and collecting my dad for the sprint to our car.

Woo! Woooooo!

I transferred that enthusiasm to Paris, when I lived there as a young man. My buddy Seamus and I would by a bottle of cheap red, occupy a bench at the Gare du Nord, and revel in the grand spectacle of coming-and-going.

So I felt great excitement when Colorado governor Jared Polis expressed his support for a train line connecting Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, through Denver. When will it happen? When certain criteria are met, which I enumerate below, for my readers in the Colorado Sun.