(The Associated Press circulated the following article by Larry Winslow on April 22.)
HAVRE, Mont. — Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway is closing its intermodal loading facility in Shelby.
Railway spokesman Gus Melonas said the closure is effective May 28 and results from declining use.
Shelby Mayor Larry Bonderud said the railroad has been phasing out use of the ramp since 1998, so it will only cut “less than 10 jobs.”
Bonderud said Dick Irvin Inc. has operated the facility for Burlington Northern since it was built in 1983, “but since the merger with Santa Fe in 1998, BNSF has been de-emphasizing the facility through its rate structure.”
He said none of the 100 BNSF employees in Shelby will be affected.
The facility is used to load freight, including semitrailers, containers of freight to be transported by land and containers of freight to be loaded on ships.
The closure means that companies with value-added products will have to truck their products much farther to load them on the railroad, he said.
Great Falls companies that used the facility will have to truck products to and from the next nearest such BNSF facility, which is in Billings (210 miles away), the Union Pacific facility near Butte (159 miles away), or the Canadian Pacific facility in Calgary (360 miles away).
He said the planned malting plant in Great Falls had been talking about shipping from Shelby, which is about 85 miles from Great Falls.
Bonderud said many Montana companies use the ramp both to send and receive freight. It affects agricultural producers who use the ramp to send ag-related products, such as specialty seeds, overseas, he said.
“We want to keep the facility open,” said Bonderud. “We’ve even offered for the Port of Northern Montana to take it over and run it for BNSF.
“This is only a small fraction of the rail business we do. We also have a 120-car train loading facility, huge lumber loading, petroleum drilling materials, grain and other bulk loading.”
Bonderud said of the 50-plus trains a day that come through Shelby, 14 or 15 are intermodal trains.
“We have other tricks up our sleeves,” Bonderud said. “And the railroad has been willing to come to the table with ideas.”
Erik Iverson, chief of staff for Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said Wednesday the closure indicates the railroad’s attitude toward Montana. The railroad has no competition, and can do what it wants, he said.
“There’s nothing we can do. We are literally held captive by BNSF,” Iverson said.
Iverson said Rehberg has been in contact with BNSF to see if the company will reconsider closing the facility.
Rehberg and Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., are sponsoring bills in Congress that would place stricter regulation on railroads in areas where they have little or no competition.