Port will seek grant to fix rail ling to Co-Ag train loader

Gazette Reporters

Officials with the Port of Whitman County may apply for approximately $3 million in federal funding to rehabilitate state-owned railroads in Whitman County.

Joe Poire, executive director for the port, said the grant would fund track improvements primarily along the P&L line in eastern Whitman County.

Poire said the repairs would be aimed at stabilizing bridges and upgrading rails on the track between the mainline connection at Marshall and the planned unit train loading facility being built by local grain companies at McCoy siding south of Rosalia.

Rosalia-based Cooperative Agricultural Producers earlier this year received the county’s approval to build a facility that would quickly load 110-car unit trains.

The port’s grant request will go to the federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, an offshoot of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Debbie Snell, port properties and development manager, said the port is first seeking a letter of support from the state Department of Transportation.

“If we don’t get that letter, than it’s a really iffy proposition to move forward,” said Snell.

The port in 2009 applied for a TIGER grant to help develop the unit train loader and make repairs on the track. That request was denied, as state transportation officials endorsed projects elsewhere.

Poire said the state’s focus has recently turned from freight to high speed passenger rail projects.

The funding would be used to repair structurally questionable bridges along the line and replace the current track with higher capacity steel. All that would be intended to better support the heavier 110-car unit trains.

Plans for Co-Ag’s train loader call for a railroad spur that would encircle two grain tanks that could hold 430,000 bushels of grain, with spouts capable of loading out 60,000 bushels per hour.

Co-Ag has been shipping 110-car unit trains with grain from its facilities in Oakesdale, Plaza and Spangle for the past two and a half years.

Under the current set-up, cars are hauled down the state-owned P&L railroad line, dropped off to be filled and hauled back to the BNSF mainline connection at Marshall.

The larger trains are preferred by the BNSF because they can haul them to Portland directly without having to switch in more cars at the Marshall junction with the P&L.