^
It's just a study. Studies are practically free. Trinidad makes sense to study for lots of reasons:
- It makes the study "statewide," giving it more political support (including potentially from traditionally transit-hostile Republicans)
- Trinidad's direct population is only 10,000, but there's about 50,000 people close enough to use Trinidad and/or Colorado City stops.
- The experience of some states with state-supported Amtrak route suggests that one of the key benefits and most popular markets for state-level rail is access to the big city from rural areas.
- Trinidad is where Amtrak's Southwest Chief stops, so it gives you that connection.
- If you're doing diesel trains on existing tracks, running one or two trains per day to Trinidad wouldn't cost very much. It may well be worth the money.
- Nothing says you have to run every train to Trinidad. You can do short-turns where most trains end at Pueblo, but a few continue on.
- There may be good reasons to put a maintenance facility in Trinidad, or something like that.
- If nothing else, it's always good to have reasonable alternatives that you later disregard. Looking at a variety of options and sussing out what does & doesn't make sense is the entire point of studies.
If they eventually recommend that Trinidad doesn't make sense, that's probably fine. But I think it would be questionable not to at least include it in the feasibility study.