State hops aboard port's grant request for railroad

State transportation officials have endorsed the Port of Whitman County’s $3 million federal rail grant proposal, allowing the application to move forward.

Joe Poire, executive director for the port, told commissioners at their regular meeting last Thursday, Sept. 1, that he had received word from state rail director John Sibold that the agency would support the port’s project.

The port is applying for $3 million in federal funding to rehabilitate state-owned railroads in Whitman County. The port’s grant request is from the federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program, an offshoot of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Poire said the state’s blessing is key in moving the application to the feds.

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 derailed when state transportation officials endorsed projects elsewhere.

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

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

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 just north of McCoy siding, which is south of Rosalia along Highway 271.