(The following story by Bill Steward appeared on the Oregonian website on November 13.)
VANCOUVER — Clark County’s taxpayer-owned railroad Lewis & Clark, on life support for years, may be getting a dinner train and an operator with an aggressive plan for freight and jobs.
Eric Temple, president of the Spirit of Washington Railroad in Renton, said Wednesday during an informal meeting of county commissioners in Vancouver that his plan could mean 289 new jobs, an annual payroll of $7 million, and possibly a “destination point” near Merwin and Yale lakes on Clark County’s northern border.
Details of Temple’s plan — including how so many jobs would be created — were not released on orders from the county prosecutor’s office. The plan will be made public when an operating contract is signed.
After a two-way competition with a Portland-based company, Temple’s company was picked to operate the 33-mile line from Hazel Dell to Chelatchie Prairie. County commissioners, accepting the selection by an 18-member citizen advisory committee, ordered staff to immediately start negotiating details. The goal is to have the rail company operating, at least partially, by Jan. 1.
First priority would be the dinner train. Spirit of Washington Railroad now operates one from Renton along the east side of Lake Washington to Woodinville, including a winery stop. The train operates eight times a week — with Mondays off — on a 44-mile round trip. The line has two mid-1950s F9 diesel-electric engines and seven cars dating from 1937 to 1952.
Steve Schulte, county transportation projects manager, said the Temple document was weighed against a proposal from Northwest Container Services in Portland. The next step will be 30 days of contract negotiations. One point to be resolved is the length of the contract — the county wants at least five years but Spirit of Washington wants to start with a three-year term.
In addition to the dinner train, Spirit of Washington plans an aggressive campaign to build up freight car traffic. The current line, which mostly uses the rail line south of Brush Prairie to reach the Burlington Northern Santa Fe connection at Hazel Dell’s Rye Junction, operates a handful of freight cars each month, including hauling of compressed gas, steel and building materials.
Temple also said the new line would like to lease a steam locomotive that is being rebuilt by volunteers in Chelatchie Prairie. The engine, which would be used to pull the dinner train, is a 1917 model that sat rusting for 43 years until 1997 in Esther Short Park.
The Temple family also owns the 88-mile Columbia Basin Railroad, formerly a part of the Washington Central Railroad, between Connell and Moses Lake. That line annually hauls 10,000 cars of primarily agricultural products.
The local plan would use initial profits to fund some $3 million in track improvements and to install fiber-optic cable for signals. It would locate the southern terminal somewhere south of 119th Avenue, or west of Prairie High School. Lynne Griffith, director of the C-Tran transit agency and a member of the county railroad advisory board, said planners would get bus riders to the depot.
Terri Tweedell, executive director of the Battle Ground Chamber of Commerce and another member of the rail advisory panel, said the proposal is “great news for Battle Ground.” She said excursion trains once originated in Battle Ground and “brought a level of business that our people in Old Town miss.”
Several people at Wednesday’s meeting expressed concern about the volunteers known as BYCX — Battle Ground, Yacolt, Chelatchie tourist train. The BYCX runs excursion trains from Yacolt and had plans to start a dinner train in about a year. The volunteers also run low-budget excursion events such as Christmas Tree Trains, a Halloween special and others.
Linc Reed-Nickerson of Camas, representing the volunteer group, took a swipe at the Temple family because efforts to reach Spirit of Washington went unanswered.
The county’s Schulte said communications were cut off because the volunteer group had allied itself with the unsuccessful bidder, and BYCX’s planned dinner train was a part of the rival Northwest Container Services proposal. But Temple said he wants to work with BYCX, starting immediately.
Tweedell said the rail volunteers “have created a very special niche” with the excursion trains. “And it’s another tourist attraction for Battle Ground.”
Under the agreement, Spirit of Washington would be responsible for the track while Clark County crews would handle brush and grass in the right of way. Dan Weaver of Vancouver, chairman of the citizen advisory committee, said that Spirit of Washington has 40 pieces of track maintenance equipment.
As for attracting businesses and jobs, Schulte said both proposals “included a strong element for economic development. There are incentives to hustle.”
Both companies proposed bringing new businesses that could save shipping costs by receiving or sending boxcars directly from their plants. Many commercial and industrial sites in Clark County are miles from rail sidings.
Commissioner Judie Stanton said the board has been aware of the railroad’s potential when mapping future land uses and zoning.
Clark County bought the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad in 1986 when the closure of wood products plants in northern Clark County left owners with almost no income. The county wanted to keep the right of way open as a future transportation option. The line was renamed the Lewis and Clark Railroad, and a private operator was hired. But the freight business has never recovered.