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Paul Lundberg, a RailAmerica vice president, and Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad attorney Terence Hynes address the Surface Transportation Board after federal, state and local officials and shippers criticized the Roseburg-based railroad’s decision to shut down the 111-mile Coos Bay line last September. The officials said the company did everything possible to maintain the service.
Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad is open to having another short line rail operator come in and operate its Siskiyou line between Dillard and Black Butte, Calif., a company official said this week.
Paul Lundberg, a vice president for CORP parent RailAmerica, said the company wouldn’t oppose efforts by the Coos-Siskiyou Shippers Coalition to bring in another operator as long as his railroad was fairly compensated and is protected from liability because of the actions of the other operator.
On Wednesday, CORP attorneys filed a response to an emergency petition submitted last week by the shippers coalition with the federal Surface Transportation Board. The petition asked to allow West Texas and Lubbock Railway and Yreka Western to operate the Siskiyou Summit line.
The CORP filing asked the STB to give the railroad 15 days to negotiate with the shippers group and the two railroads before taking action on the petition, Lundberg said.
The petition from shippers came in response to a decision by CORP earlier this year to curtail southbound service between Ashland and Weed and to cut northbound service from five days per week to two. The cost to ship on the line was also increased.
Shippers said they were told that unless CORP found a way to increase rail traffic and profitability, all service over the Siskiyou summit might be curtailed.
The changes were made, Lundberg said, because of a lack of rail traffic. According to Wednesday’s filing, CORP has not provided service between Ashland and Montague, Calif., since May 6, the last day service was requested by customers.
Lundberg denied that his company cut service as a way to eventually shutter the line, an allegation contained in the shippers’ petition.
“That’s not what happened. This is a rate dispute, as far as we’re concerned,” Lundberg said, during a telephone interview from a RailAmerica office in Jacksonville, Fla.
He said Roseburg Forest Products and Timber Products Co., two coalition members who said they were hurt by the change in service, could still ship raw and finished products by truck or use Union Pacific rail service that follows a route through Oakridge and up to Springfield and back down on CORP’s line on days the Siskiyou line doesn’t operate.
Bob Ragon, executive director of the Douglas Timber Operators group, said the shippers coalition is reviewing the 70-page CORP document and preparing a response, which is due Monday.
“We believe some of the statements in the document are in error and will be pointing those out to the STB so that they have a clear understanding of the issues addressed in our petition,” Ragon said.
In another matter, Lundberg said CORP has provided the International Oregon Port of Coos Bay adequate access to evaluate the conditions and value of the Coos Bay line, which was shut down last September.
Port officials, in a separate filing with the STB, said they could not access the entire line and were kept out of tunnels, which have been fenced off. Conditions inside a series of tunnels had deteriorated to the point last year where they were considered too dangerous for continued rail service.
The port offered $9.8 million to purchase the 111-mile line and its assets, an offer CORP attorney Terence Hynes said in an STB filing was a “mere fraction of the actual net liquidation value of the line.”
The real estate alone is worth far more than the $910,000 value placed on it by the port, Hynes wrote.
The estimated value from the railroad’s analysis was removed from the copy of the filing available to the public. However, Hynes noted that the port had secured up to $31 million in funding to purchase the line and that the port would impose a per-car surcharge, possibly as high as $600 per car.
“Given these resources, it appears that the Port can well afford to pay the constitutional minimum value of the Coos Bay Subdivision and perform any necessary rehabilitation of the line,” Hynes wrote. “And the port has confirmed that it is ‘willing to spend its last dime on saving rail service.’”
In its Wednesday filing, CORP said it was willing to reroute rail traffic from the California towns of Montague, Grenada and Weed south to Union Pacific’s line at Black Butte, where it could be shipped to Oregon through the Springfield connection. Those cars could then be routed south on CORP’s line to stops between Dillard and Ashland.
Hynes noted that prior to 1999, when CORP reinstated rail service over Siskiyou Pass, the Northern California shippers used truck service, the same as today. Southern Pacific Railroad shut down the line over the Siskiyous for several years before CORP leased it.
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@nrtoday.com.
Paul Lundberg, a vice president for CORP parent RailAmerica, said the company wouldn’t oppose efforts by the Coos-Siskiyou Shippers Coalition to bring in another operator as long as his railroad was fairly compensated and is protected from liability because of the actions of the other operator.
On Wednesday, CORP attorneys filed a response to an emergency petition submitted last week by the shippers coalition with the federal Surface Transportation Board. The petition asked to allow West Texas and Lubbock Railway and Yreka Western to operate the Siskiyou Summit line.
The CORP filing asked the STB to give the railroad 15 days to negotiate with the shippers group and the two railroads before taking action on the petition, Lundberg said.
The petition from shippers came in response to a decision by CORP earlier this year to curtail southbound service between Ashland and Weed and to cut northbound service from five days per week to two. The cost to ship on the line was also increased.
Shippers said they were told that unless CORP found a way to increase rail traffic and profitability, all service over the Siskiyou summit might be curtailed.
The changes were made, Lundberg said, because of a lack of rail traffic. According to Wednesday’s filing, CORP has not provided service between Ashland and Montague, Calif., since May 6, the last day service was requested by customers.
Lundberg denied that his company cut service as a way to eventually shutter the line, an allegation contained in the shippers’ petition.
“That’s not what happened. This is a rate dispute, as far as we’re concerned,” Lundberg said, during a telephone interview from a RailAmerica office in Jacksonville, Fla.
He said Roseburg Forest Products and Timber Products Co., two coalition members who said they were hurt by the change in service, could still ship raw and finished products by truck or use Union Pacific rail service that follows a route through Oakridge and up to Springfield and back down on CORP’s line on days the Siskiyou line doesn’t operate.
Bob Ragon, executive director of the Douglas Timber Operators group, said the shippers coalition is reviewing the 70-page CORP document and preparing a response, which is due Monday.
“We believe some of the statements in the document are in error and will be pointing those out to the STB so that they have a clear understanding of the issues addressed in our petition,” Ragon said.
In another matter, Lundberg said CORP has provided the International Oregon Port of Coos Bay adequate access to evaluate the conditions and value of the Coos Bay line, which was shut down last September.
Port officials, in a separate filing with the STB, said they could not access the entire line and were kept out of tunnels, which have been fenced off. Conditions inside a series of tunnels had deteriorated to the point last year where they were considered too dangerous for continued rail service.
The port offered $9.8 million to purchase the 111-mile line and its assets, an offer CORP attorney Terence Hynes said in an STB filing was a “mere fraction of the actual net liquidation value of the line.”
The real estate alone is worth far more than the $910,000 value placed on it by the port, Hynes wrote.
The estimated value from the railroad’s analysis was removed from the copy of the filing available to the public. However, Hynes noted that the port had secured up to $31 million in funding to purchase the line and that the port would impose a per-car surcharge, possibly as high as $600 per car.
“Given these resources, it appears that the Port can well afford to pay the constitutional minimum value of the Coos Bay Subdivision and perform any necessary rehabilitation of the line,” Hynes wrote. “And the port has confirmed that it is ‘willing to spend its last dime on saving rail service.’”
In its Wednesday filing, CORP said it was willing to reroute rail traffic from the California towns of Montague, Grenada and Weed south to Union Pacific’s line at Black Butte, where it could be shipped to Oregon through the Springfield connection. Those cars could then be routed south on CORP’s line to stops between Dillard and Ashland.
Hynes noted that prior to 1999, when CORP reinstated rail service over Siskiyou Pass, the Northern California shippers used truck service, the same as today. Southern Pacific Railroad shut down the line over the Siskiyous for several years before CORP leased it.
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or by e-mail at jsowell@nrtoday.com.
