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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Clemente If grain from the Marshall line (aka the P&L) is now either being trucked to barge terminals or to the Templin Terminal in Ritzville as stated above, does that mean they no longer load blocks of PCC/Washington State Grain Train cars at Plaza, Oakesdale, and other places on the P&L? If they built a connection from the Coulee City line (aka the CW) to the P&L, as was also stated above, in order to connect with UP instead of BNSF, do you really think the additional 145-plus miles of slow, short line routing would be beneficial? (That's more than the entire length of the CW itself.) Don't forget that this longer routing would also put a 3% grade west of Colfax in the face of all those grain loads. [/quote] Yep, that 3% (albeit short) grade west of Colfax has been a problem, but not for westbound trains. It is the eastbound (downhill) trains that have had problems of late. Remember, we're not talking about 110 car unit trains here, rather 25 car (at most) shuttle trains, so if the head end power is sufficient, the 3% isn't a problem uphill. Whether the 145 miles of extra distance is a problem may also be moot, since the Coulee City to Cheney line runs west to east, while grain is moving south and west. At one time the Coulee City line ran south of Coulee City down to Connell where it reconnected to the BN mainline, but for reasons that escape me when BN was looking for lines to chop, they took out the logical connection to the Coulee City high line in deference to the illogical connection at Cheney. Don't ask me why! That being said, is it "inefficient" to haul grain 145 miles out of the way compared to trucking that same grain 50 miles? If rail is 4 times as efficient as trucking, wouldn't the railroad have to run at least 200 miles out of the way to be comparable to a 50 mile truck haul? What I suggest the State do is to connect all the State owned lines in such a way as to be independent of forced interchange with either BNSF or UP, e.g. State grain trains could interchange with UP or BNSF if the price is right, but they wouldn't be totally dependent on that option. The way to do this is to build a rail connection down to the nearest Snake River barge port, allowing for rail to barge transload for grain exports if for some reason BNSF and UP can't or won't supply the cars or pick them up onto their networks. Another question that begs investigation: If it makes sense for BNSF to build and operate the 110 car shuttle facility at Ritzville (the Templin Terminal) for a short haul to the coast, why hasn't UP also built a similar facility on it's Washy line rather than handling the various carloads off of PCC? Come to think of it, building a 110 car grain facility in Hooper would make sense, especially if it was designed to also unload the lighter hoppers off the PCC into the mainline hoppers on the UP. Just for the record, I had suggested that BNSF allow PCC trains to access directly the Templin facility by rail over BNSF's mainline via Marshall, wherein the PCC cars could either be added to the shuttle train consist or the PCC cars could be unloaded in deference to the BNSF shuttle cars. Makes a lot more sense than having truckers haul the grain to Ritzville. In fact, I introduced this idea to the TRAINS mag staff a while back, and yada yada yada Larry Kauffman no longer writes for TRAINS! Hmmmm.....
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