Gateway rails getting $7 million upgrade

The railroad rebuild is underway and slowly stacks of rails and ties currently seen near the Cheney Rodeo Grounds will become the new and improved roadbed for the Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad.

And by sometime in early 2016 the new rails will be carrying shipments from Highline Grain's shuttle facility at Four Lakes - and beyond.

The track being upgraded runs from the junction with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe in Cheney to the Geiger Spur, a distance of 6.9 miles, Josh Austin, area manager for contractor, RailWorks, said.

Money for the effort, about $7 million-plus, came from the Washington state transportation budget approved earlier this year by the legislature.

"This project was a little unusual," Bob Westby, the Palouse Coulee City Railroad rail manager for the Washington Department of Transportation, owners of the track, said.

"We applied for a Tiger Grant a couple of years ago, we were not successful," Westby said. "This project got the attention of the Legislature and they were able to do partial funding."

However the real money is coming from Highline Grain who is lending WSDOT money for the project, which the state will pay back over a period of years.

"Highline Grain, being certainly not the only, but the primary beneficiary, they are fronting the project costs," Westby said. Highline will be reimbursed in this biennium 20 percent of the costs and future budgets will cover the remainder according to Westby.

Extending the improvements to the Geiger Spur, which was opened in 2008 with state-of-the-art tracks, was a natural.

"We've got a brand new section of railroad up on Geiger so it doesn't make any sense to stop at Highline," Westby said. There is more business than just grain shipments, especially in Airway Heights where a number of diversified industries could use rail, he said.

As for the logistical side of the project, slowly, some 800 sections of rail weighing 1.53 tons each - about 4,100 pounds - and 80 feet long, will be placed alongside the existing track.

With most activity on the line at night, the track work will take place during the day. "We're going to keep the traffic open," Austin said. The upgrade ought to be finished by mid-December.

The process to move the hefty rails first involves off-loading them from flatcars. From the stacks they are hoisted by crane to the middle of the current track and then placed on a series of rollers where a rail-mounted crane moves them to their final destination. The sections are then welded and attached to new ties.

"It will create less maintenance in the long run, (and) a heck of a lot smoother ride for that train," Austin said.

The new rails will allow trains to travel slightly faster than they do now, but such a short route would preclude significantly faster speeds. "You can't get a lot of speed there, especially when they're coming down into the yard limit," Austin said.

What the improvements will do is allow use by longer and heavier trains, primarily those of the BNSF, which will haul grain trains to their mainline in Cheney. From there they head to market.

For now this is the extent of the improvements but Austin said in the future there is plenty additional track and infrastructure in need of upgrades.

The Cheney project is one of six Austin has going in the Northwest including around Warden and Moses Lake and in Montana.

RailWorks specializes in short lines but they do specialty work for Class 1 lines like the BNSF, private lines, public and state - as is the case with the EW Gateway track owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation - as well as port districts.

Austin said the company is very busy right now but that's, "A very good thing coming into winter."

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.