Bandits at Work on Mission Mountain
Mission Mountain Railroad EMD MP15AC No. 1598 pulls a cut of cars from the BNSF Railway interchange at Columbia Falls, Mont., on November 8. This end- cab switcher started life in 1975 on the Milwaukee Road as No. 475 before going to the Soo Line and Wisconsin & Southern. It arrived in Montana for service on the Mission Mountain between Columbia Falls and Kalispell in the summer of 2016. As a result of the 1986 merger, Soo Line acquired a number of ex-Milwaukee units, applying black paint over the MILW road numbers; railfans dubbed the patched units “bandits.”
PHOTO BY JUSTIN FRANZ
REGIONALS/SHORTLINES WEST GARLAND MCKEE
Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Railway Company (officially
Back to CRANDIC CIC,
Hills Line sometimes
styled as CRANDIC) has filed to assume operations over a line of railroad known as the Hills Line extending from milepost 25.0 near Burlington Street in Iowa City to the end of the track at milepost 33.4 in Hills, Iowa, a distance of approximately 8.4 miles. This line is owned by CIC and currently leased to and operated by Iowa Interstate. Both CIC and IAIS agreed to terminate the lease on October 26 and return operation to the owner. Founded as an electric interurban railway in 1904, CIC became a diesel-powered freight- only line by the 1950s. The railroad currently operates more than 100 miles of track and handles more than 100,000 car loads of traffic each year.
Not so SMART?
Northwest Pacific Railroad (NWP) and the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) are feuding with owner of the NWP’s track, Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit
District (SMART). On
October 4, the NCRA and NWP filed with the Surface Transportation Board a request for an emergency declaratory order and a preliminary injunction to stop SMART from interfering in NWP’s freight operation. The STB denied the injunction request on October 21. In
July, NWP started handling
loaded liquid petroleum gas tank cars to, and storing them at, the rail
12 JANUARY 2017 •
RAILFAN.COM
yard in Schellville, Calif. By the end of September there were 80 loaded LPG tanks at Schellville. On October 2, SMART, which dispatches the line, began using its authority to stop certain freight from moving on the line including 12 loaded LPG cars that day. Those 12 cars were left sitting on the interchange track with the California Northern. Other LPG cars destined for the NWP were put on hold. While the STB denied the request for a preliminary injunction, it will hear the two sides of the case. SMART says it’s a contract dispute and doesn’t involve the STB, accusing the railroad of violating safety regulations at its Schellville yard. NCRA says SMART is preventing them from discharging their common carrier obligations and has no authority to do so. Arguments and replies from both sides were due by December 5.
Pacific Imperial Files for Bankruptcy
On October 10, the Pacific Imperial Railroad filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Pacific
Imperial leases the 70-mile
former San Diego & Arizona Eastern “Desert Line” line which extends from Campo to Plaster City, Calif. Pacific Imperial has leased the line from the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System for $1 million a year since 2011. Most of the trouble-plagued line is out of service and has been since the principals of Pacific Imperial assumed control of the line in 2007. Since then, former investors have filed numerous lawsuits alleging they were scammed out of their money. There have been other
lawsuits over pay, changes in investors and management,
and fines by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Still, MTS is sticking with Pacific Imperial, stating, “The San Diego MTS believes this gives [Pacific Imperial Railroad] a path forward to resolve creditor and shareholder disputes while continuing to make progress on improvements to the Desert Line.” The one bright spot has been the lease
of trackage within Mexico to Baja Rail which was promptly restored to service. One reason MTS is backing Pacific Imperial is its plan to sublease the U.S. trackage to Baja Rail.
Western Washington Purchase Agreement
WRL, LLC, has entered into a purchase agreement with Tacoma Rail (i.e., the City of Tacoma Department of Public Works) to purchase 34.6 miles of former Milwaukee Road trackage operated by Western Washington Railroad. The line extends from milepost 33C near Rainier to milepost 67.6 at Chehalis. Western Washington will continue to operate the line once WRL purchases it. Interchange is with BNSF and Union Pacific
at
Centralia, and with Tacoma Rail at Blakeslee Junction.
REGIONALS/SHORTLINES EAST STEPHEN KOENIG
Indiana Rail Road Honors Veterans
Indiana Rail Road (INRD) SD40-2
4005 was repainted in November and now has an “honoring our veterans” logo on the long hood. According to
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
