$5.7 million from BUILD: PCC Railroad gets grant for bridge, track upgrades

Palouse River & Coulee City Railroad has received a $5.7 million Federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development grant. Three of PCC rail’s branch lines will be improved to allow them to carry 286,000-pound rail cars. The project includes replacing, refurbishing or rebuilding 10 bridges, replacing about 4.6 miles of rail and rehabilitating nearly 16.3 miles of track structure.

The funding award was announced at last Thursday’s Port of Whitman meeting by Port Commissioner Tom Kammerzell.

The BUILD grant program, previously known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER), provides opportunities for the Department of Transportation to invest in road, rail, transit and port projects that will help to reach national goals. PCC, Washington’s longest short-line freight rail system, had applied for the federal grant program without success, Kammerzell said.

The initial focus specifically called out for bridge rebuild and replacement on the PCC rail.

The PCC has a number of small bridges built in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s between the Marshall main line connection and the McCoy Loader southeast of Rosalia.

The 110-car unit trains from the McCoy loader now travel approximately 10 miles per hour and with the planned improvements the speeds are expected to be advanced to 25 mph.

Fixing the bridges is expected to increase productivity for the loader.

“We need all the options. We need both the river and the rail as modes of transportation,” Kammerzell commented.

Creating increased operating speeds and increased operational weight efficiency, particularly for agricultural products, is expected to reduce rail shipping costs as a result.

The $5.7 million grant requires a one-to-one match, so the work that will be done will total in the range of $11 million.

Support letters and a commitment of $15,000 were submitted by the port to WSDOT in preparation for applying for a BUILD grant.

In 2018, BUILD awarded 91 grant projects in 49 states and the District of Columbia. The Geiger Boulevard infrastructure improvements project in Spokane County at Airway Heights received $13.4 million.