(The following article by David Lester was posted on the Yakima Herald-Republic website on September 20.)
YAKIMA, Wash. — A new proprietor will operate the Toppenish-White Swan rail line at the end of this year.
County commissioners today are scheduled to approve a lease of the 22 miles of county-owned track with Columbia Basin Railroad of Yakima.
The four-year lease will take effect in 90 days, ending an operating agreement that the Toppenish Simcoe and Western Railroad has held with the county.
Supporters of Toppenish Simcoe and its nonprofit parent, the Yakima Valley Rail and Steam Museum Association of Toppenish, say the switch will kill the museum.
Toppenish Simcoe pays for insurance coverage for museum activities on the line and will provide about $25,000 in financial support to the museum this year from an increasing revenue base.
Rail traffic on the line, most of it from the Yakama Forest Products mills in White Swan, has grown from about 50 cars several years ago to an estimated 3,800 this year.
County commissioners, in a controversial 2-1 vote, decided in January to negotiate a lease first with Columbia Basin, owned by the Temple family. Commissioners said Columbia Basin offered the best chance for economic development on the line.
Commissioners Mike Leita and Ron Gamache favored Columbia Basin’s offer. Commissioner Jesse Palacios cast the opposing vote.
Commissioners were inundated with petitions asking them to change their minds. Commissioners also were the focus of numerous letters to the editor in the Yakima Herald-Republic criticizing the decision.
In light of the possible impacts on the museum, commissioners directed that Columbia Basin negotiate a sublease with the museum to allow its school excursions and tourist events to continue.
But the museum rejected Columbia Basin’s offer of payments of $3 per loaded car — more than $11,000 per year under current traffic — as inadequate to keep the museum operating. The proposal also would have required the museum to purchase its own liability insurance if community volunteers continue to crew excursion trains, a cost of about $30,000. Museum officials say volunteers are critical to its existence and help to attract new members.
Leita said the county took extra time to make its decision, hoping the two sides could reach a sublease agreement.
“We felt it was important to honor our commitment to keep them whole in some fashion,” he said.
Leita said the easy way out would have been for commissioners to continue with Toppenish Simcoe. But he said the railroad’s lease proposal was what he termed conditioned on too many things occurring. The proposal, which featured a partnership with a Minnesota short-line carrier, was not well-defined, Leita said.
“The simple fact is we have come to a point where the county was no longer comfortable with the past relationship and went out to offer the lease,” he said.
Museum supporters point out the association saved the rail line from abandonment in 1992 and has earned the right to continue.
The line had been proposed for abandonment by its then-operator, Washington Central Railroad, also owned by the Temple family.
Washington state’s Transportation Department purchased the line out of abandonment and signed title over to the county. The county, which then turned to the museum to operate the line, receives no income from its operations.
The county proposed leasing the line late last year as a way to generate income to match state and federal grants to upgrade the line.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad purchased Washington Central in 1996.
The Temples then formed Columbia Basin Railroad to operate 84 miles of short lines between Connell and Moses Lake. Columbia Basin was selected last year to lease BNSF short lines in the Yakima Valley.
Jim Berg, a Yakima attorney representing both the museum and Toppenish Simcoe, disagrees with Leita that Columbia Basin made a better offer.
“There’s not one aspect of it that makes any sense to my clients,” he said, “when they worked so hard over these years and were making money. The proposal they submitted from a financial standpoint is equivalent to what Columbia Basin is doing.”
The museum contains displays of early equipment used on the line and is also restoring a steam engine.
County Engineer Gary Ekstedt, who monitored the negotiations between the two sides, said the lease agreement with Columbia Basin requires the railroad to maintain its sublease offer to the museum throughout the four-year term of the initial lease.
He said Columbia Basin also is required to submit to the county an economic development plan for the line by the end of 2008.
If the plan is acceptable, the county would consider extending the lease for 11 more years to allow Columbia Basin to recoup its financial investment.