WINTER PARK, Colo. The railroad, once the engine that drove theeconomy around here, is on a collision course with the new moneymachine: tourism.
Despite a railroad history so rich that the ski runs have nameslike Rail Bender, Derailer and Cannonball, this resort community highin the Rocky Mountains has passed an ordinance threatening engineerswith a $300 fine or 90 days in jail if they blow their horns whiletraveling through town.
Seems the people who ski, raft, bicycle, hike and visit duderanches do not like being rudely awakened by a blast from anearly-morning train.
Complaints have picked up steam in the last couple of years,ever since the Union Pacific RR started routing more freight trainsthrough Winter Park because another stretch of track was closed.Mayor Nick Teverbaugh says the number of trains has doubled to about30 a day.
"All of a sudden it seems like they're blowing their hornsreally loud, and they blow their horns way past the intersection,which is uncalled for," says Kathee Thomure, who lives next to thetracks.
Lee Reynolds, owner of the Pines Inn at Winter Park, says he hasnever received so many complaints from his guests as he has in thelast year.
"I don't think they have to lay on the horn. A couple of shorttoots would do it," he says. "We're awakened a couple of times anight."
Federal law requires trains to start blowing their horns aquarter-mile from a crossing to warn drivers and pedestrians. WinterPark has three crossings, one with no signals.
Ed Trandahl, a spokesman for Union Pacific, says that federallaw supersedes local law and that the railroad will ignore the town'sordinance.
"If we don't blow the horns and there is a collision, there aremany lawyers very happy and willing to sue us with great diligence,"he says.
When the Winter Park ski resort was developed in the late 1930sand '40s, it borrowed names from the railroad industry. In recentyears, condominiums, second homes and lodges - landmarks of the "new"West - have grown up around the railroad, where the flat land isconcentrated between the steep mountains. The year-round populationof 615 people rises during summer and grows to about 8,000 duringski season.
The lonesome whistle of a train in the middle of the night is nolonger a romantic sound, because Winter Park is no longer a lonesomeplace.
Teverbaugh says his town is trying to strike a balance betweenits past and its future.
But Winter Park businessman Tim Flanagan, who grew up with thesound of the train and figures he probably couldn't sleep at night ifthe horns stopped blowing, opposes the ordinance. The railroads,after all, were here first.
"This tourism thing is an add-on that came later," he says.
Similarly, Patrick Brower, who publishes several localnewspapers, says: "People want to bring what they have somewhere elseand impose what they have here. People come up here and build secondhomes and want to know why the road isn't paved. The train is partof here."
The ordinance was adopted in July by the town council. Nocitations have been issued, even though trains are still blowingtheir horns.
Brower says Winter Park is not going to win this fightagainst the railroads.
"I suggest they give earmuffs to people who complain," he says."They could put the Winter Park logo on them."
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