(The following story by Bennett Hall appeared on the Corvallis Gazette-Times website on June 6.)
CORVALLIS, Ore. — The Portland & Western Railroad has announced an embargo of the branch line running south from Corvallis beginning June 16, but shippers and local officials are vowing to fight the move.
A railroad executive, citing safety concerns, said the move is the first step toward permanently abandoning the Bailey Branch, a 23-mile spur that serves fewer than a dozen cargo shippers in south Benton County. Customers include Western Pulp Products in the Corvallis Airport Industrial Park, grass-seed producer Venell Farms and the historic steam-powered Hull-Oakes Lumber Co. mill at the line’s terminus in Dawson.
“Due to the track’s condition, it has become unsafe to operate down there,” said P&W President Bruce Carswell. There have been five minor derailments on the Bailey Branch in the past five weeks.
Former Hull-Oakes partner Wayne Giesy, a spokesman for the south county freight shippers, said his group isn’t about to give up on the line.
“We plan to contest it,” Giesy said of the abandonment plan.
“It’s disappointing,” said Benton County Commissioner Linda Modrell, a longtime rail-service advocate. “We will continue to push on this, but I also understand their problem.”
The problem is a combination of poorly maintained tracks and low freight volumes.
The Bailey Branch has been in sad shape since the Portland & Western (also known locally as the Willamette & Pacific) began leasing the tracks in 1993, first from the Southern Pacific and now from the track’s new owner, the Union Pacific.
Portland & Western officials have been threatening for years to abandon the line but have always backed off in the face of fierce opposition from shippers, elected officials and others determined to maintain rail service to the south end of the county.
Abandonment is a formal procedure that requires approval from the federal Surface Transportation Board. The request would have to come from the Union Pacific, which previously has declined to take that step.
Despite some $350,000 in state-funded repairs over the last few years and some additional work by the railroad, rotting crossties and light-gauge rails still limit freight trains to 7 mph — even slower on the worst stretches.
Freight volumes have never been high on the line and they continue to fall. Last year the Bailey Branch moved just 630 railcars, down nearly 100 carloads in just two years. The industry standard for a shortline railroad, Carswell said, is 100 carloads annually per mile of track.
“If you just do the simple math, obviously we’re not anywhere near that,” he said.
Giesy claims there could be more customers on the line if the railroad had invested more in upgrades and made a commitment to keep the branch open. He also argued the existing shippers have done their part by ponying up a $49-per-carload maintenance fee.
“The shippers on that line have been paying a surcharge so they can keep some of the hotspots protected,” Giesy said.
Carswell said the P&W has worked with the shippers to find alternatives, from building a rail-to-truck transfer station to finding another railroad to operate the line.
“None of them would pencil out and work economically, either for us or for the customers,” Carswell said.
The most recent scheme for keeping the Bailey Branch open involved a request last fall by Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio that the Union Pacific donate the track. The railroad countered with an offer to sell the line, but at an asking price of $2.1 million, it found no takers.
If the Bailey Branch is abandoned, Giesy said, the shippers would lose the competitive advantage they get with rail transport and Benton County residents would have to contend with hundreds more trucks on the road.
But an even greater cost, he suggested, might be the loss of a possible future passenger rail link to Eugene as the population grows and gas prices continue to climb.
“It would be a shame to lose that corridor,” Giesy said.
“I think rail service is going to have to become more prominent here on the West Coast.”